Poems on the Underground
Poems on the Underground was launched in 1986, following an idea from the American writer Judith Chernaik, to bring poetry to a wider audience.
The programme helps to make journeys more stimulating and inspiring by showcasing a range of poetry in Tube train carriages across London. The poems are selected by Judith Chernaik and poets George Szirtes and Imtiaz Dharker.
Poems on the Underground highlights classical, contemporary and international work, by both famous and relatively unknown poets. Its success has inspired similar schemes in cities around the world, from New York to Shanghai.
The scheme is supported by TfL, Arts Council England and The British Council.
Poems on the Underground (Penguin, 2015) contains over 200 poems featured on the Tube and is available from the London Transport Museum shop and all good bookshops.
The second series of poems for 2025 is now on trains.
Judith Chernaik, Founder of Poems on the Underground, says, "Our summer poems are a strongly international set, linked by common themes with universal appeal. All six poems address the relationship of human life to the natural world, as it unfolds in 'sea and sky and trees'."
A Young Poet on the Underground, Ann Gilmore Heezen, observes a struggling housefly in August heat; the British-Nigerian poet Gboyega Odubanjo rewrites Genesis for modern times, the Korean poet Jeongrye Choi is lost in a forest.
Tube travellers are invited to imagine Shakespeare's 'wild thyme and luscious woodbine', the 9th century Tang poet Po Chu-i's Red Cockatoo 'speaking with the speech of men', and the smell of orange trees recalled in memory by the Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha.
The poems are:
- Jeongrye Choi, 'Forest', translated by Brenda Hillman, Wayne de Fremery and Jeongrye Choi
- Anna Gilmore Hezeen, 'Pane'
- Po Chu-i,'The Red Cockatoo', translated by Arthur Whaley
- William Shakespeare, an excerpt from 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'
- Mosab Abu Toha, 'Daughter'
- Gboyega Odubanjo, 'Genesis'
Genesis
by Gboyega Odubanjo
then god said let me make man in my image
man in my likeness man like me
man like light and man like dark
let man nyam and chop whatever be good
god said give man arm to skank leg to shake
tongue and chest to speak with
give man cash to spray put man's face on it
said give man sea and sky and trees
and zones one to six on the oyster so man can see it
now man said rah swear down
man said show me
Reprinted by permission of Faber & Faber from Adam (2024)