World Poetry Day Recordings 2024

Poems on the Underground Celebrating World Poetry Day 2024

Poets Cyril Wong, Jo Clement, John Glenday, Helen Ivory, Ian Duhig, Paula Meehan, Kerry Shawn Keys, George Szirtes, John Hegley, Imtiaz Dharker, Maura Dooley, Valerie Bloom, Seni Seneviratne and Marjorie Lotfi reading favourite poems from Poems on the Underground

Poetry speaks to our common humanity and our shared values, transforming the simplest of poems into a powerful catalyst for dialogue, thought and peace.

Since 1986, Poems on the Underground has brought more than 600 poems, old and new, familiar and unfamiliar, to all who travel on London Underground. Poets who have featured on the Underground have recorded some of their favourite Poems on the Underground for World Poetry Day giving us the opportunity to be reminded of the beauty that surrounds us and of the resilience of the human spirit.

You took away all the oceans and all the room, Osip Mandelstam ' You took away all the oceans and all the room. You gave me my shoe-size in earth with bars around it.'

You took away all the oceans and all the room by Osip Mandelstam read by Cyril Wong

Crow by Cyril Wong ' How does one begin to drink the sky? By tasting its tears, of course, the crow realised. Yet why does it remain so full – a pitcher of blue without end?' Reprinted by permission of Math Paper Press from Animal Season (2020)

Crow read by Cyril Wong

Paisley by Jo Clement ' With India’s hand on the loom I untwist a paisley square from round my neck: red, green and gold threads repeat almonds some call figs, figs the Welsh call pears and pears you might call teardrops. Shook onto the grass, I smooth out Kashmir -- so close to silk – over the fault line made of my body: feet in England, head in Scotland, a heart elsewhere.' Reprinted by permission of Bloodaxe Books from Outlandish (2022)

Paisley read by Jo Clement

For My Wife, Reading in Bed by John Glenday ' I know we’re living through all the dark we can afford. Thank goodness, then, for this moment’s light and you, holding the night at bay—a hint of frown, those focussed hands, that open book. I’ll match your inward quiet, breath for breath. What else do we have but words and their absences to bind and unfasten the knotwork of the heart; to remind us how mutual and alone we are, how tiny and significant? Whatever it is you are reading now my love, read on. Our lives depend on it.' John Glenday Reprinted by permission of Picador from Selected Poems (2020)

For My Wife, Reading in Bed read by John Glenday

The Creel by Kathleen Jamie 'The world began with a woman, shawl-happed, stooped under a creel, whose slow step you recognize from troubled dreams. You feel obliged to help bear her burden from hill or kelp-strewn shore, but she passes by unseeing thirled to her private chore. It's not sea birds or peat she's carrying, not fleece, nor the herring bright but her fear that if ever she put it down the world would go out like a light.'

The Creel by Kathleen Jamie read by John Glenday

The Square of the Clockmaker by Helen Ivory When the last train left, the tunnel rolled the train track back into its mouth and slept. Clocks unhitched themselves from the made-up world of timetables and opened wide their arms. And in the square of the clockmaker a century of clocks turned their faces to the sun. Helen Ivory Reprinted by permission of SurVision Books From Maps of the Abandoned City (2019)

The Square of the Clockmaker by Helen Ivory read by Helen Ivory

This Is Just To Say , William Carlos Williams 'I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold'

This is Just to Say by William Carlos Williams read by Helen Ivory

Bridled Vows by Ian Duhig I will be faithful to you, I do vow, but not until the seas have all run dry et cetera. Although I mean it now I’m not a prophet and I will not lie. To be your perfect wife, I could not swear; I’ll love, yes; honour (maybe); won’t obey, but will co-operate if you will care as much as you are seeming to today. I’ll do my best to be your better half, but I don’t have the patience of a saint and at you, not with you, I’ll sometimes laugh, and snap too, though I’ll try to show restraint. We might work out. No blame if we do not. With all my heart, I think it’s worth a shot.

Bridled Vows read by Ian Duhig

Harmonica by Michael Longley read by Ian Duhig

Paula Meehan reading Not Weeding

London Poems on the Underground Sweet Thames Flow Softly, Ewan MacColl. I met my girl at Woolwich Pier, beneath a big crane standing.

Paula Meehan Reading Sweet Thames flow Softly by Ewan MacColl

Vesper for my mother by Kerry Shawn Keys ' Next to the grapes to the side of the house, the mother with the disappearing bones showed me the flowers opening at dusk, perfuming the silence. See, they unfold the dark to make music with the moths. She stepped inside. Far off, the yellowing moon crocheted its starry nightgown into her shadow.' Reprinted by permission of the author Kerry Shawn Keys ( 2020)

Kerry Shawn Keys reads his poem Vesper and Rivertime by Michael Jennings

A Trojan horse in Trafalgar Square George Szirtes ‘We stood in Trafalgar Square completely covered in pigeons but looking all too pleased to find such wholehearted acceptance. We were the boys of the awkward squad, growing at an angle.’

George Szirtes reads his poem A Trojan Horse in Trafalgar Square

Sonnet 73 by William Shakespeare ' That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou seest the twilight of such day As after sunset fadeth in the west; Which by and by black night doth take away, Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. In me thou seest the glowing of such fire That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, As the deathbed whereon it must expire, Consumed with that which it was nourished by. This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong, To love that well which thou must leave ere long.'

George Szirtes reads Sonnet 73 by William Shakespeare

Disillusionment of Ten O’ Clock, Wallace Stevens ' The houses are haunted By white night-gowns. None are green, Or purple with green rings, Or green with yellow rings, Or yellow with blue rings. None of them are strange, With socks of lace And beaded ceintures. People are not going To dream of baboons and periwinkles. Only, here and there, an old sailor, Drunk and asleep in his boots, Catches tigers In red weather.'

George Szirtes reads disillusionment of 10 O Clock by Wallace Stevens

Sometimes by Sheenagh Pugh (b. 1950)' Sometimes things don't go after all, from bad to worse. Some years, muscadel faces down frost; green thrives; the crops don't fail, sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well. A people sometimes will step back from war; elect an honest man; decide they care enough, that they can't leave some stranger poor. Some men become what they were born for. Sometimes our best efforts do not go amiss; sometimes we do as we meant to. The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow that seemed hard frozen: may it happen for you.' Reprinted by permission of Seren Books from Selected Poems (1990) © Sheenagh Pugh 1990 100 Poems on the Underground

George Szirtes reads Sometimes by Sheenagh Pugh

Thankyou London Underground, John Hegley ‘Tufnell Park and Camden Town Where Air Raid huddles laid them down.’

Thankyou London Underground read by John Hegley

Sonnet 116, William Shakespeare 1998 Poster Poems on the Underground ' Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments; love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove'

Sonnet 116 by William Shakespeare read by John Hegley

A Red, Red Rose by Robert Burns Poems on the Underground 1992 poster 'O my Luve's like a red, red rose, That’s newly sprung in June; O my Luve's like the melodie That’s sweetly play'd in tune. As fair art thou, my bonnie lass, So deep in luve am I; And I will love thee still, my Dear, Till a’ the seas gang dry. Till a’ the seas gang dry, my Dear, And the rocks melt wi’ the sun: O I will love thee still, my Dear, While the sands o’ life shall run. And fare thee weel, my only Luve! And fare thee weel, a while! And I will come again, my Luve, Tho' it were ten thousand mile!'

Imtiaz Dharker reads a Red Red Rose by Robert Burns

World Poems on the Underground Carving , Imtiaz Dharkar. Others can carve out their space in tombs and pyramids

Imtiaz Dharker reads Carving

He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven by W. B. Yeats (1865 - 1939) Poems on the Underground 1993 'Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half-light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.'

Maura Dooley reads He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven by W.B. Yeats

Still Life with Sea Pinks and High Tide, Maura Dooley 'Thrift grows tenacious at the tide's reach. What is that reach when the water is rising, rising?'

Maura Dooley reads Still life with Sea Pinks and High Tide

dreamer, Jean Binta Breeze 'roun a rocky corner by de sea seat up pon a drif wood yuh can fine she gazin cross de water a stick eena her han tryin to trace a future in de san'

dreamer by Jean Binta Breeze read by Valerie Bloom

Rising, Jean Binta Breeze having some summers gone dug out that old tree stump that darkened my garden having waited without planting (for it was impossible then to choose the growth) having lost the dream but not the art of healing having released the roots of pain into content I now stir the skies

Rising by Jean Binta Breeze read by Valerie Bloom

The London Breed I love dis great polluted place Where pop stars come to live their dreams Here ravers come for drum and bass And politicians plan their schemes, The music of the world is here Dis city can play any song They came to here from everywhere Tis they that made dis city strong. A world of food displayed on streets Where all the world can come and dine On meals that end with bitter sweets And cultures melt and intertwine, Two hundred languages give voice To fifteen thousand changing years And all religions can rejoice With exiled souls and pioneers. Benjamin Zephaniah Reprinted by permission of Bloodaxe Books from Too Black Too Strong (2001)

The London Breed by Benjamin Zephaniah read by Valerie Bloom

Colonization in Reverse Wat a joyful news, Miss Mattie, I feel like me heart gwine burs’ Jamaica people colonizin Englan in reverse. By de hundred, by de t’ousan From country and from town, By de ship-load, by de plane-load Jamaica is Englan bound. Dem a-pour out o’ Jamaica, Everybody future plan Is fe get a big-time job An settle in de mother lan. What a islan! What a people! Man an woman, old an young Jusa pack dem bag and baggage An tun history upside dung! Louise Bennett © Louise Bennett 1966 from Jamaica Labrish (Sangsters, 1966)

Colonization in Reverse by Louise Bennett read by Valerie Bloom

The Weight of the World by Seni Seneviratne Oh, how they blew like vast sails in the breeze, my mother’s wet sheets, pegged hard to the rope of her washing line. There was always hope of dry weather and no need for a please or thanks between us as we hauled them down. Whether to make the fold from right to left or left to right, to tame the restless heft? My job to know. I won’t call it a dance but there were steps to learn and cues to read, the give and take of fabric passed like batons in a relay race. She was my due north. Her right hand set west, mine tracing the east, we closed the distance, calmed the wayward weight, bringing order to the billowing world.

Seni Seneviratne reading The Weight of The World

Seni Seneviratne reading He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

Packing for America My Father in Tabriz , 1960 by Marjorie Lotfi He cannot take his mother in the suitcase, the smell of khorest in the air, her spice box too tall to fit. Nor will it close when he folds her sajadah into its cornered edges. He cannot bring the way she rose and blew out the candles at supper’s end, rolled the oilcloth off the carpet to mark the laying out of beds, the beginning of night. He knows the sound of the slap of her sandals across the kitchen tiles will fade. He tosses the framed photographs into the case, though not one shows her eyes; instead, she covers her mouth with her hand as taught, looks away. He considers strapping the samovar to his back like a child’s bag; a lifetime measured by pouring tea from its belly. Finally, he takes the tulip tea glass from her bedside table, winds her chador around its body, leaves the gold rim peeking out like a mouth that might tell him where to go, what is coming next.

Marjorie Lotfi reads Packing for America

Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers, Adrienne Rich ' Aunt Jennifer's tigers prance across a screen, Bright topaz denizens of a world of green. They do not fear the men beneath the tree; They pace in sleek chivalric certainty. Aunt Jennifer's finger fluttering through her wool Find even the ivory needle hard to pull. The massive weight of Uncle's wedding band Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer's hand. When Aunt is dead, her terrified hands will lie Still ringed with ordeals she was mastered by. The tigers in the panel that she made Will go on prancing, proud and unafraid.'

Marjorie Lotfi reading Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers by Adrienne Rich

Listen to the rest of the Poems on the Underground Recordings