Scottish Poetry Library Poems on the Underground Exhibition

Scottish poets on the Underground

A selection of Poems on the Underground posters featuring poets from Scotland and beyond will be on display at the Scottish Poetry Library during the 2024 Edinburgh Festival.

The exhibition is free to visit during opening hours and will run until early autumn.

Up in the Morning Early by Robert Burns

Up in the Morning Early ,Robert Burns 'Cauld blaws the wind frae east to west, The drift is driving sairly; Sae loud and shrill's I hear the blast, I'm sure it's winter fairly.'

Up in the Morning Early read by Gerard Benson

So We’ll go no more A roving by Lord Byron

So We'll Go No More A-Roving by Lord Byron Poems on the Underground 1996 'So, we'll go no more a-roving So late into the night, Though the heart be still as loving, And the moon be still as bright. For the sword outwears its sheath, And the soul wears out the breast, And the heart must pause to breathe, And Love itself have rest. Though the night was made for loving, And the day returns too soon, Yet we'll go no more a-roving By the light of the moon.'

So We’ll go no more a roving read by Gavin Ewart

The Creel by Kathleen Jamie

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

For my Wife, reading in Bed by John Glenday

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

Packing for America by Marjorie Lotfi

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.

Packing for America read by Marjorie Lotfi

Sweet Thames Flow Softly by Ewan MacColl

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

Sweet Thames Flow Softly read by Paula Meehan

The Loch Ness Monster’s Song by Edwin Morgan

The Loch Ness Monster's Song, Edwin Morgan 'Sssnnnwhuffffll? Hnwhuffl hhnnwfl hnflhfl? Gdroblboblhobngbl gbl gl g g g g glbgl'

The Loch Ness Monster’s song read by Gerard Benson

Favourite Poems on the Underground

Paisley by Jo Clement

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

Benediction by James Berry

Benediction, James Berry 'Thanks to the ear that someone may hear Thanks to seeing that someone may see Thanks to feeling that someone may feel Thanks to touch that one may be touched Thanks to flowering of white moon and spreading shawl of black night holding villages and cities together'

Benediction read by James Berry

rising by Jean Binta Breeze

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 read by Valerie Bloom

What I know of the sea by İlhan Sami Çomak tr. by Caroline Stockford

What I know of the sea by İlhan Sami Çomak translated by Caroline Stockford ' Rains wander your face, the gentleness of dew is in your voice. Let each and every spring be yours! May all mountains tire and arrive here! Here at the place where stars have spilled you where waters flow; the place where you say Curl up on my lap and let birds take flight In the place where we collected questions such as ‘what was before words?’ What I know of love is so little! Yet I’m constantly thinking of you!' Reprinted by permission of Smokestack Books from Separated from the Sun (2022)

What I know of the sea read by George Szirtes

Ozymandias, by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley 'I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed. And on the pedestal these words appear: 'My name is OZYMANDIAS, King of Kings: Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!' Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.'

Ozymandias read by Gavin Ewart

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 , Anon read by Nii Ayikwei Parkes

By Yourself, Boy 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

And if I speak of Paradise Roger Robinson

And if I speak of Paradise, Roger Robinson ‘And if I speak of Paradise then I’m speaking of my grandmother who told me to carry it always on my person, concealed, so no one else would know but me.’

And if I speak of Paradise read by Imtiaz Dharker

Like a Beacon Grace Nichols

Like A Beacon, Grace Nichols 2009 Poster 'In London every now and then I get this craving for my mother’s food I leave art galleries in search of plantains saltfish/sweet potatoes I need this link I need this touch of home swinging my bag like a beacon against the cold'

Like a Beacon read by Valerie Bloom

This Is Just to Say William Carlos Williams

This Is Just To Say , William Carlos Williams Poems on the Underground Poster 1992 '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 read by Helen Ivory

Westron wynde when wylt thou blow Anon

Westron wynde when wylt thou blow, Anon 'Westron wynde when wylt thou blow the small rain down can rain Christ that my love were in my arms and I in my bed again'

Westron Wynde when wilt thou blow read by Gerard Benson

I have a gentil cock by Anonymous

I have a gentil cock (anon), Poems on the Underground 1,000 years of poetry in English 'I have a gentil cock croweth me day he doth me risen early my matins for to say I have a gentil cock comen he is of great his comb is of red coral his tail is of jet'I have a gentil cock comen he is of kind his comb is of red sorrel his tail is of inde his legs be of azure so gentil and so small his spurs are of silver white into the wortewale his eyes are of crystal locked all in amber and every night he percheth him in my lady`s chamber'

I Have a Gentil Cock read by Gerard Benson

dreamer Jean Binta Breeze

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 read by Valerie Bloom

He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven W.B. Yeats

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.'

He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven read by Seni Seneviratne

Everything Changes by Cicely Herbert

Everything Changes, after Brecht Alles wandelt sich ,Cicely Herbert ‘ Alles wandelt sich. Neu beginnen Kannst du mit dem letzten Atemzug. Aber was geschehen, ist geschehen. Und das Wasser Das du in den Wein gossest, kannst du Nicht mehr herausschütten. Was geschehen, ist geschehen. Das Wasser Das du in den Wein gossest, kannst du Nicht mehr herausschütten, aber Alles wandelt sich. Neu beginnen Kannst du mit dem letzten Atemzug. Everything changes. We plant trees for those born later but what’s happened has happened, and poisons poured into the seas cannot be drained out again. What’s happened has happened. Poisons poured into the seas cannot be drained out again’, but everything changes. We plant trees for those born later.'

Everything Changes read by Cicely Herbert