Autumn poems

Click on the poem titles above to view the poems

Our Autumn set of poems was posted on the Tube on 5 October 2009, 25 years after we approached London Underground about putting poems in empty advertising spaces. Launched two years later, the scheme became an instant success. Similar projects sprang up within the year in Dublin, New York and San Francisco, and have been imitated in cities across the world, often featuring ‘exchanges’ of poems with London. Paris, Stuttgart, Vienna, Athens, Barcelona, Porto, Helsinki, Stockholm, Moscow and St Petersburg, Sydney, Shanghai, São Paolo, and now Estonia, have offered their citizens poetry on public transport, drawing on world poetry as well as their own writers, past and present.

The Autumn poems include four from our first year: a well-loved sonnet by Shakespeare (‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’); a 20^th-century love poem, ‘Her Anxiety’ by W.B. Yeats; ‘This Is Just to Say’ by the populist American poet William Carlos Williams; and one of the most moving of World War I poems, known to every schoolchild, ‘Everyone Sang’ by Siegfried Sassoon. Also featured: ‘Prayer’ by the new poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy; and ‘Indian Cooking’ by Moniza Alvi, born in Lahore but long resident in London. We hope the poems on display reflect the range and special appeal of our programme.

The basic printing and posting costs of Poems on the Underground are now fully funded by London Underground (TfL), through the Mayor’s office. We receive additional support from Arts Council England and the British Council. Posters are distributed to schools by the Poetry Society, and are also available from London Transport Museum. The featured poems can be read on the websites of TfL, the British Council, the Poetry Society, the Poetry Book Society, and the Saison Poetry Library. Poems are selected by Gerard Benson, Judith Chernaik and Cicely Herbert and posters are designed by Tom Davidson.

The poems include:

Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Her Anxiety by W.B. Yeats (1865-1939)

This Is Just to Say by William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)

Everyone Sang by Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967)

Prayer by Carol Ann Duffy (b. 1955)

Indian Cooking by Moniza Alvi (b. 1954)