London’s Poems on the Underground celebrates 40 years of bringing verses to commuters

Can a few lines of verse make commuting less worse? That, in essence, is the question asked four decades ago by Judith Chernaik, an American writer in London who wondered whether posting poems inside subway cars might enlighten, amuse, and inspire riders. The result was Poems on the Underground, a project that turns 40 this year and has been copied in cities around the world. Since 1986, many millions of London Underground passengers have seen posters adorned with poems nestled among the advertisements on their daily journeys. More than a dozen poets whose work has featured in the project gathered in a subway station to celebrate the milestone and pay tribute to Chernaik, who started it all. The New York native moved to London in the 1970s and fell “absolutely in love with the city–including its transport system,” which she found compared favorably to her home city’s subway. “I used the subway all the time in New York,” she said. “It was not one of my pleasurable activities.” Chernaik, a novelist and essayist, also reveled in London's rich literary culture and history. “Poetry,” she said, “is part of the heritage of every Londoner.” Along with two poet friends, Gerard Benson and Cecily Herbert, she hatched a plan to combine literature and transit. The subway operator was supportive, and the first poems went up in January 1986. “Somehow the idea of it worked, and here we are, 40 years on,” said Chernaik, now 91. The first year’s poems included works by William Shakespeare, Robert Burns, W.B. Yeats, Percy Bysshe Shelley—“Ozymandias,” a reflection on the transience of power—and William Carlos Williams’ imagist poem “This Is Just to Say,” with its famous opening: “I have eaten / the plums / that were in / the icebox.” The choice soon expanded to include poems from around the world, by Wole Soyinka, Pablo Neruda, Derek Walcott, Anna Akhmatova, and many more. The selection is changed three times a year, and Chernaik is still on the panel that chooses the poems, alongside poets George Szirtes and Imtiaz Dharker. This article was provided by The Associated Press.