New Poems on the Underground Summer 2025

The summer Poems on the Underground go live on Underground and Overground trains on June 2nd

Our summer poems are an international set linked by common themes with universal appeal. All six poems address the relationship of human life to the natural world, as it unfolds in ‘sea and sky and trees’.  A Young Poet on the Underground, Anna Gilmore Heezen, observes a housefly in August heat; the British-Nigerian poet Dr. Gboyega Odubanjo rewrites Genesis for modern times, the South Korean poet Jeongrye Choi is lost in a forest. Tube travellers can imagine Shakespeare’s ‘wild thyme and luscious woodbine, sweet musk-roses and eglantine’; the Chinese poet Po Chui-i’s ‘peach-tree blossom’, and the smell of oranges as recalled by the Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha.

The Poems are:

Genesis by Dr. Gboyega Odubanjo Reprinted by permission of Faber & Faber from Adam (2024) © The Estate of Gboyega Odubanjo, 2024 

Daughter by Mosab Abu Toha Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins from Forest of Noise (4th Estate 2024)

Forest by Jeongrye Choi Reprinted by permission of Parlor Press from Instances: Selected Poems translated by Brenda Hillman, Wayne de Fremery and Jeongrye Choi (2011)

from A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare

The Red Cockatoo by Po Chu-I Translated by Arthur Waley Reprinted by permission of Estate of Arthur Waley. Calligraphy by Qu Lei Lei

Pane by Anna Gilmore Heezen  Young Poets on the Underground

Daughter by Mosab Abu Toha

Daughter I ask her to remember, not because I want to hear the story again, but because I want to watch her face relive the moment. That moment, her eyes sparkle with longing, I can see how she flies from the tent to a time when she leapt through our farm in every direction with eyes closed, only stopping at the fence, where our orange trees embrace our neighbours’ olive trees. Some fallen oranges would tell her to open her eyes, to pick them up and put them in a plate at our doorstep, where children returning from school would stop to gulp some. I love the smell of oranges best when she remembers. Mosab Abu Toha Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins from Forest of Noise (4th Estate 2024)

Genesis by Gboyega Odubanjo

Genesis then god said   let me make man in my image man in my likeness   man like me man like light and man like dark let man nyam and chop whatever   be good   god said   give man arm to skank   leg to shake tongue and chest to speak with give man cash to spray   put man’s face on it   said give man sea and sky and trees and zones one to six on the oyster so man can see it     now man said   rah   swear down        man said   show me Gboyega Odubanjo Reprinted by permission of Faber & Faber from Adam (2024) © The Estate of Gboyega Odubanjo, 2024

Forest by Jeongrye Choi

Forest Does the path leading to one tree go like this to another? Does it finally arrive at all the ultimate trees? The ideal beauty of one tree is so much like that of another. No end and no beginning. Green quivering for a moment— whose shadow are you? Jeongrye Choi Reprinted by permission of Parlor Press from Instances: Selected Poems translated by Brenda Hillman, Wayne de Fremery and Jeongrye Choi (2011)

from A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare

from A Midsummer Night’s Dream I know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine. There sleeps Titania sometime of the night, Lull’d in these flowers with dances and delight; And there the snake throws her enamell’d skin, Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in. William Shakespeare

The Red Cockatoo by Po Chu-I

The Red Cockatoo Sent as a present from Annam – A red cockatoo. Coloured like the peach-tree blossom, Speaking with the speech of men. And they did to it what is always done To the learned and eloquent. They took a cage with stout bars And shut it up inside. Po Chu-i Translated by Arthur Waley Reprinted by permission of Estate of Arthur Waley. Calligraphy by Qu Lei Lei

Pane by Anna Gilmore Heezen

Pane No creature feels August’s restlessness more I thought, than a housefly. Across the room it had taken a wrong turn from the syrupy sunshine outside. I watched it butt its head against the glass, watched it beat against the window’s smooth glass chest, wring its hands in bewilderment, try again, fall to the sill, stunned, get up and do it again. Unable to watch its stubborn struggle anymore, I got a plastic cup, gently caught the little black firework before it fizzed itself out, watched it sink up into the sky like a coin in a public fountain. Perhaps God will guide me a few inches to the left too, I thought. When it was gone, I looked up through the branches and glimpsed blue. Anna Gilmore Heezen Young Poets on the Underground