Cicely Herbert and Gerard Benson were part of the ‘Barrow Poets’ who made verse more accessible by performing in schools and pubs.
And Judith Chernaik was a book-loving New Yorker struck by the beauty of literary London and its “wonderful” Tube system.
They all lived in Mansfield Road, Gospel Oak and on a particularly jolly evening, Judith had an idea – inspired by Shakespeare’s lovelorn Orlando in As You Like It who posted his poems on trees.
“We had become good friends not long after I moved to London and after a lot of wine it occurred to me that we could put poems on the empty advertising spaces on the Tube,” says Judith.
“The idea still appealed to me the next morning when I was sober and I wrote to the Underground to see if they were interested.”
To her surprise, they replied by return of post urging her to talk to London Underground’s advertising manager about her idea.
It turned out the organisation had a long tradition of encouraging young artists to create posters – complete with London-inspired poetry to encourage Tube travel.
Judith had to raise a small sum of money to buy the ad space, and applied to the Arts Council who gave her £2,000 to start what became Poems on the Underground.
“The Underground people really wanted to enhance the experience of this wonderful transport system and at the time advertising was not expensive,” she says.
“You have to understand I had come from New York where the subway was unclean and dangerous but we just had to use it – I still think London has one of the great transport systems of the world.”
Recruiting her new neighbours, Cicely and Gerard, they formed a committee and posted their first five poems in January 1986.
They included Shelley’s Ozymandias, a poem by Robbie Burns, and two contemporary poets Seamus Heaney and Grace Nichols whose verse described the experience of arriving in London from the Caribbean.
“We didn’t start out with any agenda or grand ideas – it was wonderful to have Shakespeare and Keats, but also important to give space to contemporary poets,” she says.
Judith still feels the mix of new and old poets, and verse from writers from all over the world, strikes a chord with Londoners – even if they aren’t poetry buffs.
The idea was a hit, and quickly spread to transport systems around the world; first Dublin then Paris, Oslo, Stockholm, and Warsaw and on to Moscow, St Petersburg and Beijing.
“It was quite an extraordinarily popular idea that was taken up and has led to a lot of interesting travel where I’ve been invited to attend the launch at various metro systems,” says Judith.
Today Transport for London funds the scheme to post six poems three times a year with writers Imtiaz Dharker and George Szirtes taking over choosing the poems following Gerard’s death.
Poems on the Underground has never had a grand HQ, and is still run from Judith’s Gospel Oak home.
She’s delighted that even in an age when many commuters are too engrossed on their phones to look up, it’s celebrating its 40th birthday with a special event this month at Aldgate Tube Station.
“There is something very different about seeing a poem on a Tube,” she says.
“It’s a special way of reading a poem and reaches you in a different way – we are aware when we choose the poems that they need to be short, but they also have to reach your heart or get your attention in some way.”
Judith Chernaik has edited an updated version of her book 100 Poems on The Underground published by The Publishing Business.
