Poems on the London Underground, February 2020

April 11, 2020 10:59 PM

Honesty by Kit Wright
The Gulls by Jacob Polley
Prayer for My Father as a Child by Miriam Nash
Sonnet 98 (‘From you I have been absent in the spring’) by Shakespeare; and read by Tom Hiddleston
Fear by Ciaran Carson
Perseverance by Marin Sorescu, translated by D.J. Enright

Background: Celebrating 30 years of Poems on the Underground
Poems about the underground by readers of the Londonist.
List of the February 2020 poems.
Previously on MF.

posted by paduasoy (6 comments total)

I love poetry in public places, especially mass transit. Thank you!
posted by wicked_sassy at 6:03 AM on April 12, 2020

Apparently poetry is written exclusively by white people, and almost exclusively by men.
posted by nirblegee at 6:48 AM on April 12, 2020

No need to be bilious if white men write some poems.
posted by Segundus at 8:37 AM on April 12, 2020

I was in London in 1990, alone, on my own. I got a transit pass and discovered the poems on the underground. So from that point on, as I walked into a car I looked to see what poems were there. One day, there was a poem, I no longer remember what it was, it was old and it spoke to my current situation and the reason I was in London on my own. Tears came. I never expected public transit could do something like that. Putting poems on the underground is such a wonderful idea.
posted by njohnson23 at 9:36 AM on April 12, 2020 [2 favorites]

I vividly remember discovering "What lips my lips have kissed...." on the Underground when I went there in the eighties. I knew of Millay before then, but I didn't love her until then.

Here in Canada they put the poems on our buses, with an English and a French version, so they can only use poems that translate well. I really enjoy reading them in both languages and examining the subtle differences that result.
posted by Jane the Brown at 10:56 AM on April 12, 2020 [1 favorite]

Mirian Nash's poem for her father is wonderful stuff.
posted by Oyéah at 12:23 PM on April 13, 2020