"Inspired by a reading of As You Like It, Judith Chernaik, an American writer living in London, conceived a plan to scatter poetry across the underground as the love-sick Orlando hangs sonnets through the Forest of Arden. Her simple idea took root below the sewers and spread to cities across the world. Poetry in Motion launched in New York in 1992, and today poems can be found on public transport in Dublin, Paris, Beijing, Shanghai, Warsaw and Moscow."
"Six poems, spanning history and geography, are chosen three times a year. A selection of winter poems will launch on 9 February, with work from contemporary British poets Rachel Boast and Blake Morrison and a haiku by the 18th-century Japanese poet Kobayashi Issa. The anonymous 15th-century poem I Have a Gentil Cock ruffled feathers in 1990 and there were calls to ban Jo Shapcott's Quark for the word bollocks in 1999."
"During lockdown a website was set up to ensure that commuters got their poetry fix, and hopeful new poems greeted them when they returned to work. In 2024, Poems on the Underground was given an archive at Cambridge University. From the earliest Edwardian posters and those by Paul Nash and Man Ray in the 1930s, to Harry Beck's iconic map and David Gentleman's 1979 Charing Cross station mural, Transport for London has a long tradition of art and design."
Poems on the Underground places curated poems on the London Underground to bring art and imagination into daily commutes. The scheme began when Judith Chernaik, inspired by As You Like It, proposed scattering poetry through the network; the idea took root and spread internationally, inspiring projects like Poetry in Motion in New York. Six poems are selected three times a year, mixing contemporary and historical work. The initiative weathered controversies over provocative lines, adapted with a lockdown website, and received an archive at Cambridge University. Transport for London’s long tradition of posters and design complements poetry’s role in humanizing subterranean travel.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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