Polish poems
Click on the poem titles above to read the poems
In June and July 2011, three poems by major Polish poets – ‘Blacksmith Shop’ by Czesław Miłosz, ‘Nothing Special’ by Zbigniew Herbert and ‘Star’ by Adam Zagajewski - will be on display in Tube trains, marking the centenary of Czesław Miłosz, one of the greatest poets of our time.
The poets were close friends, writing in the dark shadow of Polish suffering during and after the Second World War. Miłosz translated the poems of Herbert and introduced Adam Zagajewski to English-speaking readers. Zagajewski wrote the Introduction to Herbert’s Collected Poems. All three poets were ‘makers’ in the oldest sense, artists building a world ‘from remnants’, celebrating the joys of ordinary life despite the ravages of history.
Three poems by British poets continue the theme: the power of poetry to record the world, to ‘tease out the melody’, to give weight to memory and hope.
‘The Windhover’ by Gerard Manley Hopkins is composed in Hopkins’s personal language of religious ecstasy. ‘At Sixty’ by the Shetlandic poet Christine de Luca, about reaching the age of 60 in the far north, is written in Shetlandic, a Scots dialect still spoken in the Shetland Islands, which lie on the 60th parallel. ‘Ourstory’ by Carole Satyamurti is a tribute to the unsung ‘awkward women’ whose tenacity helped to liberate the lives of women today.
Poems on the Underground is supported by TfL, Arts Council England and the British Council, with special support from the Polish Cultural Institute for Polish Poems on the Underground. Poems are selected by writer Judith Chernaik and poets Cicely Herbert and Gerard Benson (poet laureate of Bradford). Posters are designed by Tom Davidson, and are available from London Transport Shop, the Poetry Society and the British Council.
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