New Poems on the Underground June 2024

Summer Poems on the Underground, June 2024

Our summer Poems on the Underground go live on London Underground and Overground cars on Monday June 3rd for four weeks.  We are delighted to welcome the joys of summer and its special music with a truly international set of poems: a tribute to the great American jazz greats by the Ghanaian-British poet Nii Ayikwei Parkes; a 13th-century round, also known as the Cuckoo Song; a love poem by Azita Ghahreman, an Iranian poet writing in Persian; Don Paterson’s version of a sonnet to Orpheus by the great Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke; A E Housman’s lament from A Shropshire lad; and an extract from the late Benjamin Zephaniah’s celebration of our common origins as ‘refugees’.

The poems:

A Glimpse by Azita Ghahreman, translated from the Persian by Elhum Shakerifar and Maura Dooley    Reprinted with permission from Negative of a Group Photograph (Poetry Translation Centre / Bloodaxe Books, 2018)

from We Refugees by Benjamin Zephaniah   Reprinted by permission of Penguin Books from Wicked World (Puffin, 2000).

By Yourself, Boy. . . (1988-2007) by Nii Ayikwei Parkes   Reprinted by permission of Peepal Tree Press from The Makings of You(2010)

The Isle of Portland by A.E. Housman, from A Shropshire Lad

‘Sumer is icumen in’    Anon 13 Century Music manuscript by permission of The British Library Board, BL Harley 978f.1.1v

Taste by Don Paterson   Reprinted by permission of Faber & Faber from Orpheus: A Version of Rilke’s ‘Die Sonette an Orpheus’ (2006)

A Glimpse by Azita Ghahreman, translated from the Persian by Elhum Shakerifar and Maura Dooley

A Glimpse So caught up in our conversation that darkness fell and covered us with large damp wings and not a single light showed in that blue hour where we stood grown-up children held for a moment, astonished, watching a paper boat as the water swallowed it. Azita Ghahreman, translated from the Persian by Elhum Shakerifar and Maura Dooley Reprinted with permission from Negative of a Group Photograph (The Poetry Translation Centre / Bloodaxe Books, 2018)

A Glimpse read in Persian by Azita Ghahreman

A Glimpse by Azita Ghahreman read by Maura Dooley

from We Refugees by Benjamin Zephaniah

from We Refugees We can all be refugees Sometimes it only takes a day, Sometimes it only takes a handshake Or a paper that is signed. We all came from refugees Nobody simply just appeared, Nobody’s here without a struggle, And why should we live in fear Of the weather or the troubles? We all came here from somewhere Benjamin Zephaniah from We Refugees Reprinted by permission of Penguin Books Limited from Wicked World (Puffin, 2000).

By Yourself, Boy. . . (1988-2007) by Nii Ayikwei Parkes

By Yourself, Boy. . . (1988-2007) Nat King Cole’s on the TV staring hard at his audience, his hands setting up plays while he sings. Ray Charles said he sang so damn well people forgot how good he was on keys, and I see it now; his right hand stuffs a melody down the grand piano’s throat – that’s the fake – he dribbles the sound down to low notes until you expect the left hand to come in lower. That’s when he breaks mould, hustles his left hand over the right, throws high notes into your ear -crossover, up, swish. Now the trash talk it’s better to be by yourself boy… He smiles like the silent men on my tapes and, suddenly, every move has a name, a sound, a history. Nii Ayikwei Parkes Reprinted by permission of Peepal Tree Press from The Makings of You (2010)

By Yourself Boy…. read by Nii Ayikwei Parkes

The Isle of Portland by A.E. Housman

The Isle of Portland The star-filled seas are smooth to-night From France to England strown; Black towers above the Portland light The felon-quarried stone. On yonder island, not to rise, Never to stir forth free, Far from his folk a dead lad lies That once was friends with me. Lie you easy, dream you light, And sleep you fast for aye;, And luckier may you find the night Than ever you found the day. . A. E. Housman

The Isle of Portland by A.E. Housman read by Maura Dooley

‘Sumer is icumen in’ Anon

‘Sumer is icumen in’ Sumer is icumen in Loud sing cuckoo! Groweth seed and bloweth mead And springeth the wood now, Sing cuckoo! Ewe bleateth after lamb, Cow loweth after calf, Bullock starteth, buck farteth, Merry sing cuckoo! Cuckoo, cuckoo! Well singest thou cuckoo, Nor cease thou never now! Sing cuckoo now, sing cuckoo! Sing cuckoo, sing cuckoo now! Anon (13th century) Music manuscript by permission of The British Library Board, BL Harley 978f.1.1v

Sumer is Icumen in read by Nii Ayikwei Parkes

Taste by Don Paterson

Taste Gooseberry, banana, pear and apple, all the ripenesses . . . Read it in the child’s face: the life-and-death the tongue hears as she eats . . . This comes from far away. What is happening to your mouth? Where there were words, discovery flows, all shocked out of the pith – What we call apple . . . Do you dare give it a name? This sweet-shop fire rising in the taste, to grow clarified, awake, twin-sensed, of the sun and earth, the here and the now – the sensual joy, the whole Immense! Don Paterson Reprinted by permission of Faber & Faber from Orpheus: A Version of Rilke’s ‘Die Sonette an Orpheus’ (2006)