London — Could a few lines of verse improve the journey?
In short, this is the question asked four decades ago by Judith Chernack, an American writer in London, who wondered whether posting poems inside subway cars could enlighten, entertain, and inspire riders.
Poems on the Underground,
A project celebrating its 40th anniversary this year has become a global phenomenon. Since 1986, many millions of London Underground commuters have seen posters decorated with poems amidst advertisements on their daily journeys.
More than a dozen poets whose work is featured in the project gathered on Friday at a subway station — where else? – A subway station to celebrate the milestone and pay tribute to Chernack, the man who started it all.
The New York native moved to London in the 1970s and “absolutely fell in love with the city—including its transportation system,” which she compared favourably to her home city’s subway.
“I used the subway all the time in New York,” he said. “It was not one of my enjoyable activities.”
Chernyak, a novelist and essayist, was also interested in London’s rich literary culture and history.
“Poetry is part of every Londoner’s heritage,” he said.
With two poet friends, Gerard Benson and Cecily Herbert, he planned to combine literature and transcendence. The subway operator was supportive, and the first poems were published in January 1986.
“Somehow the idea worked and here we are, 40 years later,” said Chernack, now 91.
Poems from the first year included works by William Shakespeare, Robert Burns, W. B. Yeats, Percy Bysshe Shelley—including “Ozymandias,” a reflection on the transience of power—and William Carlos Williams’s imagist poem, “This Is Just to Say,” with its famous opening:
Berry
who were inside
Icebox”
The choices soon expanded to include poems from around the world by Wole Soyinka, Pablo Neruda, Derek Walcott, Anna Akhmatova, and many others.
The selection is changed three times a year, and Chernack is still on the panel that selects the poems, along with poets George Szirtes and Imtiaz Dharkar.
“From Shakespeare and Sappho to poets who are really contemporary,” said Ann Gavaghan, who oversees cultural projects at Transport for London; the productions mix modern verses with centuries-old classics.
There are sonnets and haiku, love poems, sad poems, funny poems, and other poems highly related to travellers, such as “Overcrowding” by Hungarian poet Katalin Szlukovényi.
Nick Makoha, whose poem “BOM”—the airport code for Mumbai—featured on the Underground in 2020, said the program takes poetry into the everyday world.
He said, “Poetry can often be taught as if it’s something you need to have a high intellect for, but we’re normal people.” “Poets are ordinary people who sometimes write about ordinary things and sometimes about surprising things.
“Poetry is about the community,” Makoha said. “It should be part of our daily life, and the Underground is part of daily life. So, just as it connects us to places, it also connects us to people. You could be sitting on Turnpike Lane (tube station), and suddenly I’ve taken you to Bombay.”
London’s transit network isn’t perfect – commuters are often frustrated by delays, overcrowding and dirty trains – but it has long been recognised for its artistic brilliance. its map. It is considered a design classic, and for a century it has enlisted top artists to design its posters.
Poems on the Underground is now a much-loved tool of the system that has produced several books and inspired similar projects in cities, including New York, Dublin, Oslo, and Shanghai.
Gavaghan said the key to its success is to give travellers something that “takes them off their journey.”
“If you’ve had a hard day and you’re lost in your worries and anxieties, to be able to see something on the Underground that makes you think, that kind of jolts you out of it, is a really good thing.” “And it can make you laugh; it can make you think. It really makes you empathise.
“It’s really powerful. And it’s important to have it, and that’s why it’s still going on after 40 years.”
