Poems on the Underground
Poems on the Underground is a project, started in 1986, to bring poetry to a wider audience by displaying various poems on the London Underground rapid transit network and participating websites. Poems on the Underground displays poems by contemporary and classic poets three times a year. POTU also produces booklets free of charge to the public and anthologies.[1]
History
Launched in 1986, the Poems on the Underground programme was the idea of three writers, Judith Chernaik, Gerard Benson, and Cicely Herbert whose aim was to bring poetry to a wider audience. Judith Chernaik, Cicely Herbert, Imtiaz Dharker, and George Szertes now select poems for inclusion in the programme. London Underground provides space on its fleet of trains, and they and POTU's partners also display the poems on their websites during the duration of the print display. The posters are designed by Tom Davidson.[2]
Partners for Poems on the Underground, include London Underground, which generously supports the programme, and the Arts Council of England, the British Council, London Arts and the Poetry Society.
The programme
A series of different poems are displayed at any given time, ranging from classical and historical works by such well-loved poets as Blake, Shakespeare and Shelley, to contemporary and emerging poets from around the world. The works are displayed three times a year and have proved extremely popular with the travelling public.
Recent booklets, distributed free to the public, include Young Poets on the Underground, London Poems on the Underground, Irish Poems on the Underground, and World Poems on the Underground. Poems on the Underground also publishes anthologies of Poems on the Underground and the most recent edition is Poems on the Underground, A New Edition, Penguin 2012.
See also
- Wall poems in Leiden — public poems in many languages in Leiden, Netherlands
- Art on the Underground
References
External links
- Poems on the Underground, Transport for London.