Poems on the Underground in audio       

A selection of the exhibited poems - poems featured on the Tube for Summer 2009:

Jerusalem by Blake        

A vision by one of London’s greatest poets of Islington and Primrose Hill, St Pancras and Kentish Town as a new Jerusalem   

Composed upon Westminster Bridge by Wordsworth        

The famous ode to the city, seen at dawn, when ‘all that mighty heart is lying still’   

After the Lunch by Wendy Cope        

Romance on Waterloo Bridge, by a hugely popular comic poet, formerly a London music teacher   

Rhymes on the Road by Tom Moore        

Byron’s friend and biographer celebrates the city as it stays in the mind forever   

And Now Goodbye by Jaroslav Seifert       

(translated from the Czech by Ewald Osers) Lines about poetry by a Nobel prizewinner, displayed in memory of the Velvet Revolution and to commemorate the Czech Presidency of the European Union   

POEMS ON THE UNDERGROUND    

An exhibition    

On 26 September 2009 ‘Poems on the Underground’ was displayed in the City Library Brakja Miladinovci. On the occasion of the cultural event ‘Beli nokji’ and the opening of the British corner in the City Library, 16 ‘Poems on the Underground’ posters were exhibited in the library hall.

About Poems on the Underground

Poems on the Underground was launched in 1986. The programme was the brainchild of American writer Judith Chernaik, whose aim was to bring poetry to the wide ranging audience of passengers on the Underground. Judith Chernaik, together with poets Cicely Herbert and Gerard Benson, continue to select poems for inclusion in the programme.

Contemporary and historical poems are included as the programme aims to give a wide variety of choice and style. Works from established and emerging poets from around the world are used.

New sets of poems generally appear three times each year and six poems are displayed in advertising spaces within tube carriages across London. Readers who sample the poems on their way to work often want to read more.

London Underground sponsors the programme by donating the space, and helping with the cost of design and production. Sponsorship is also received from The British Council, London Arts, The Poetry Society and The Arts Council of England. The British Council has supported Poems on the Underground since its inception in 1986.

Poems on the Underground has been the inspiration for similar programmes around the world: in Dublin (on the DART suburban railway) and in Adelaide, Melbourne, New York, Paris, Stuttgart, Sydney, Barcelona, Athens, Moscow, St Petersburg and most recently Shanghai. The UK Poems on the Underground have been displayed in the subway systems of Helsinki, Oslo, Stockholm and Vienna. Themes have included European Poetry, Young Poems on the Underground, Commonwealth Poetry, Chinese Poetry, African Poetry and 1,000 Years of Poetry.

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