Poetry speaks to our common humanity and our shared values, transforming the simplest of poems into a powerful catalyst for dialogue, thought and peace.
Poems on the Underground Celebrating World Poetry Day 2024
Poems on the Underground archive donated to Cambridge University Library
The Poems on the Underground archive – which includes hundreds of posters, eclectic memorabilia and letters from some of the greatest poets of the past century – has been donated to Cambridge University Library, home to the archives of Siegfried Sassoon, Anne Stevenson and other renowned poets.
Among the letters to organisers of the Poems on the Underground project are missives from Nobel Prize winners Seamus Heaney and Louise Glück, former Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy, and Philip Larkin, among many other famous names from the world of poetry.
The Poems on the Underground collection has been catalogued and is available for consultation at Cambridge University Library by anyone interested in seeing it.
Poems on the Underground started life in January 1986 as an experiment by three friends, the writer Judith Chernaik and the poets Cicely Herbert and Gerard Benson. They persuaded London Underground to post a few poems on its trains, to the delight of bemused commuters. London Underground has supported the programme ever since, enabling us to offer poetry old and new, familiar and unfamiliar, to three million daily travellers on London’s Underground system.
After five years on the tube, we returned the poems to the printed page as 100 Poems on the Underground, which quickly became a best-seller. Our latest collection, Poems on the Underground: A New Edition, is now a Penguin Classic. Most recently, we have added free leaflets of poems on special themes, available on station platforms. Tube displays and free leaflets have been made possible by the generous support of London Underground, Arts Council England and The British Council, which has sent our posters to its offices abroad, inspiring similar programmes in cities across the world. Posters are designed by Tom Davidson, and are usually available from The Poetry Society and London Transport Museum.
We are grateful for renewed support from Arts Council England and for major support from Transport for London and The British Council, enabling us continue to offer poems of the highest quality and range to a mass audience with a new set of Poems on the Underground 3 times a year.
We are pleased to be awarded an Arts Council NPO grant for 2023-2026
As we approach 40 years of Poems on the Underground, we are delighted to offer tube travellers a new set of poems to celebrate the enduring value of our closest human relationships
New Spring Poems on the Underground 2024
new set of poems for Spring 2023
new set of poems for Autumn 2022
new set of poems for Summer 2022
new set of poems for Spring 2022
new set of poems for Autumn 2021
new set of poems for Summer 2021
new set of poems for February 2021
new set of poems from November 2020
new set of Poems from August 2020
Black History Month leaflet 2020
updated Black History Month leaflet 2023
London Poems on the Underground Leaflet
War Poems on the Underground leaflet
February Poems on the Underground leaflet
We now have over 600 poems on our website, and will be adding more each month. You can find all of the poems that are now on our website listed in the index
The Editors: Judith Chernaik, Imtiaz Dharker, George Szirtes