‘Having poetry in a public space transports us, even if we don’t understand it’.
Poems on the Underground, founded in 1986 by writer Judith Chernaik, marked its 40th anniversary this year with an anthology and an event, still placing verse in London Tube carriages.
Poems on the Underground, a scheme that puts verse in London Tube carriages beside adverts and maps, marked its 40th anniversary this year. Positive News reports that the Tube carries about 3 million people on journeys each day, and the project aims to offer them something other than deadlines and screens.
The American writer Judith Chernaik founded the project in 1986. It now displays six poems at a time, refreshed three times a year, and mixes classic and contemporary writers. Poets who have appeared range from Shakespeare and Sappho to Wole Soyinka and Blake Morrison. A 40th-anniversary anthology, 100 Poems on the Underground, collects selections, and the scheme held an event at Bank Station in January.
Chernaik and her co-editors, the poets Imtiaz Dharker and George Szirtes, pick each set, which runs for about three months. In recent years selections have also appeared at stations including Heathrow, Westminster and Aldgate East. Chernaik said the poems are not chosen to be relentlessly upbeat, because "life is very complicated, and grief and struggle and despair are part of it." Letters from Seamus Heaney and Philip Larkin supporting the idea, now held at Cambridge University, helped persuade Transport for London to take part.
Riders interviewed for the article described varied reactions. Glen, 44, said: "Having poetry in a public space transports us, even if we don't understand it." Katie, 27, said the poems are a reminder that not everything is AI and marketing. Malaika, 25, recalled a poem about a woman's love for her newborn that made her tear up, and said she then saw a woman and her teenage daughter reading it, the woman with tears in her eyes.
Complaints have been rare, Chernaik said, with one over alleged blasphemy and another over a medieval poem. Nearly all responses, she said, have been positive. Late last year, Reform UK and Conservative members of the London Assembly called the £72,000 TfL spend on the project a waste of money. The scheme is funded by the Arts Council, TfL and the British Council, and it continues. The article says it has inspired similar projects in cities including Dublin, New York and Shanghai, and Chernaik hopes someone will eventually take over from her.
At a Glance
- Poems on the Underground was founded in 1986 by the American writer Judith Chernaik.
- Six poems are displayed at a time on Tube trains, refreshed three times a year.
- The 40th-anniversary anthology, 100 Poems on the Underground, was marked with an event at Bank Station in January.
- Funding comes from the Arts Council, TfL and the British Council; TfL's spend was cited as £72,000.
Sources
This brief was written by Brightside Report from the reporting linked above. Spot an error? Request a correction.