"Thus, with apologies to Philip Larkin: They fuck you up, the Northern Line trains / They may not mean to, but they do / They say they're coming though Camden / Whereas you know they're stuck at Waterloo. It ends: Governments hand on misery to man / It deepens like the Northern Line itself / Get off the trains as early as you can / And don't commute at all if you want your health."
"The Odyssey is oral poetry. Homer couldn't count on his audience keeping in their heads who was who or why one god had a beef with another. That's why Telemachus is invariably described as sensible (even when his actions are otherwise), Penelope is frequently called wise and the sea, we constantly reminded, is wine-dark. If director Christopher Nolan does hold up his fight sequences to fill us in on the plot of the forthcoming multiplex blockbuster, he will have the ancient bard on his side."
Poems on the Underground exists, but few selected poems capture the experience of the London Underground. A 1996 collection titled Poems NOT on the Underground was created to address that gap with satirical commuter verse about Northern Line delays, concluding that commuting harms health and advising avoiding trains. The Odyssey exemplifies oral-poetry techniques that counter short attention spans through repeated descriptors and recurring imagery to orient listeners. Repetition names characters as sensible or wise and constantly reminds audiences of key elements like the wine-dark sea. Modern filmmakers who pause action to explain plot mirror these ancient oral strategies.
#poems-on-the-underground #london-underground-commuting #satirical-commuter-poetry #homer-and-oral-tradition
Read at www.theguardian.com
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