This Month’s Poems

Days of November 2009 by Sheenagh Pugh Short days, long shadows: sun rising low skims the hill. Mending, making good, days full of outdoor jobs, folk racing to finish before dark, before winter. Angled light, always on the edge of leaving. These days when every little thing feels urgent, unmissable, when all you want is to hold on to a lit rack of cirrus, the taste of woodsmoke catching your throat, a sleek seal slipping back under, the farewell of geese, scribbled in black arrows. Reprinted by permission of Seren from Short Days, Long Shadows (2014)

Days of November 2009 read by Sheenagh Pugh

This month we feature our new Autumn Poems on the Underground which will be on London Underground and Overground trains through November.

To mark Armistice Day, we also feature poems displayed on the underground to commemorate the First World War, and touching on wars from the earliest times to the present.

We also feature Poems for Peace and recordings of Old English Poems made for Poems on the Underground and we reprint our set of poems from October 2025

War Poems on the Underground leaflet

New Autumn Poems on the Underground

Valerie Bloom: from Brave New Words

Brave New Words A new year starts and my resolution’s to learn a new word every day, Words to impress, make people stare when they see and hear me say: Chuckwalla, haboob, and bandicoot, Williwaw, swullocking, malamute, Spelunking, borak, pawky, cleek, Boonoonoonoos, ortanique, Belonephobia, pogonophile, Farthingale, myrmecophile, Hectogram and requiem, Oh, I love the sound of them. Valerie Bloom Reprinted by permission of the author from They Sent a Cat to SATURN: Poems by Valerie Bloom (Otter-Barry Books 2026) © Valerie Bloom

Bernard O’Donoghue: ‘Going Without Saying’: i.m. Joe Flynn

Going Without Saying i.m. Joe Flynn It is a great pity we don’t know When the dead are going to die So that, over a last companionable Drink, we could tell them How much we liked them. Happy the man who, dying, can Place his hand on his heart and say: ‘At least I didn’t neglect to tell The thrush how beautifully she sings.’ Bernard O’Donoghue Reprinted by permission of Faber & Faber from Selected Poems (2008)

Going Without Saying written and read by Bernard O’Donoghue

Langston Hughes: ‘Song for Billie Holiday’

Song for Billie Holiday What can purge my heart Of the song And the sadness? What can purge my heart But the song Of the sadness? What can purge my heart Of the sadness Of the song? Do not speak of sorrow With dust in her hair, Or bits of dust in eyes A chance wind blows there. The sorrow that I speak of Is dusted with despair. Voice of muted trumpet, Cold brass in warm air. Bitter television blurred By sound that shimmers-- Where? Langston Hughes Reprinted by permission of David Higham from Selected Poems (Serpent’s Tail 2020) © Langston Hughes 1959

Song for Billie Holiday by Langston Hughes read by Nick Makoha

Grace Nichols: ‘For the Life of This Planet’

For the Life of This Planet The way the red sun surrenders its wholeness to curving ocean bit by bit. The way curving ocean gives birth to the birth of stars in the growing darkness, wearing everything in its path to cosmic smoothness. The impulse of stones rolling towards their own roundness. The unexpected comets of flying fish. And Forest, Great-Breathing-Spirit, rooting to the very end for the life of this planet. Grace Nichols Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown from I have Crossed an Ocean: Selected Poems (Bloodaxe Books 2010) Reprinted in 40 Poems for 40 Years (Poems on the Underground 2026)

For the Life of This Planet by Grace Nichols read by Marjorie Lotfi

Jaan Kaplinski tr. Fiona Sampson: ‘Only at dusk do eyes really begin to see…’

Only at dusk do eyes really begin to see Only at dusk do eyes really begin to see. The colours of flowers become lucid and bright before night extinguishes them: carnations, yellow roses, meadow-vetch and buttercups. The wind has died down and the sky -- the faded, nearly invisible background of all our comings and goings -- is suddenly here, just above the treetops and pylons, shining through foliage and above the roof of the house in all its depth and blueness. Behind the outhouse Venus appears; to the right of the pole of the well, Jupiter: once two gods, now two stars. Jaan Kaplinski translated by Fiona Sampson Reprinted by permission of Bloodaxe Books from Jaan Kaplinski, Selected Poems, translated by Jaan Kaplinski, Sam Hamill, Hildi Hawkins and Fiona Sampson (2011)

Only at Dusk by Jaan Kaplinski read by Fiona Sampson

Emily Bronte: Fall leaves fall

Fall leaves fall Fall leaves fall, die flowers away Lengthen night and shorten day Every leaf speaks bliss to me Fluttering from the autumn tree I shall smile when wreaths of snow Blossom where the rose should grow I shall sing when night’s decay Ushers in a drearier day Emily Bronte

Old English Poems

Old English Riddle, Anon, Tr. Gerard Benson 'A moth, I thought, munching a word. How marvellously weird! a worm Digesting a man's sayings - A sneakthief nibbling in the shadows At the shape of a poet`s thunderous phrases - How unutterably strange! And the pilfering parasite none the wiser For the words he has swallowed.'

Old English Riddle translated by Gerard Benson read by Carl Kears

Old English Riddle read in Old English by Carl Kears

Caedmon's Hymn 7th century AD translated by Paul Muldoon ' Now we must praise to the skies the Keeper of the heavenly kingdom, The might of the Measurer, all he has in mind, The work of the Father of Glory, of all manner of marvel, Our eternal Master, the main mover. It was he who first summoned up, on our behalf, Heaven as a roof, the holy Maker. Then this middle- earth, the Watcher over humankind, Our eternal Master, would later assign The precinct of men, the Lord Almighty. '

Caedmon’s Hymn in Old English read by Carl Kears

Caedmon’s Hymn translated by Paul Muldoon read by Clare Lees

The Coming of Grendel from BEOWULF (10th century or earlier) translated by Gerard Benson 'Now from the marshlands under the mist-mountains Came Grendel prowling; branded with God`s ire. This murderous monster was minded to entrap Some hapless human in that high hall. On he came under the clouds, until clearly He could see the great golden feasting place, Glimmering wine-hall of men. Not his first Raid was this on the homeplace of Hrothgar. Never before though and never afterward Did he encounter hardier defenders of a hall.'

The Coming of Grendel from Beowulf translated and read by Gerard Benson

from Beowulf Anon. (10th century or earlier) translated by Seamus Heaney 'Then a powerful demon, a prowler through the dark, nursed a hard grievance. It harrowed him to hear the din of the loud banquet every day in the hall, the harp being struck and the clear song of a skilled poet telling with mastery of man's beginnings, how the Almighty had made the earth a gleaming plain girdled with waters; in His splendour He set the sun and the moon to be earth's lamplight, lanterns for men, and filled the broad lap of the world with branches and leaves; and quickened life in every other thing that moved. '

‘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

Anglo Saxon Riddle translated by Kevin Crossley-Holland 'I'm a strange creature, for I satisfy women, a service to the neighbours! No one suffers at my hands except for my slayer. I grow very tall, erect in a bed, I'm hairy underneath. From time to time a good-looking girl, the doughty daughter of some churl dares to hold me, grips my russet skin, robs me of my head and puts me in the pantry. At once that girl with plaited hair who has confined me remembers our meeting. Her eye moistens. (suggested answer: 'Onion')'

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'

War Poems on the Underground

Everyone Sang by Siegfried Sassoon Poems on the Underground 1999 poster 'Everyone suddenly burst out singing; And I was filled with such delight As prisoned birds must find in freedom, Winging wildly across the white Orchards and dark-green fields; on - on - and out of sight. Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted; And beauty came like the setting sun: My heart was shaken with tears; and horror Drifted away ... O, but Everyone Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.'

Everyone Sang by Siegfried Sassoon read by Adrian Mitchell

1915 I Know the Truth - Give up All Other Truths! , Marina Tsvetayeva (1892-1941) translated by Elaine Feinstein 'I know the truth - give up all other truths! No need for people anywhere on earth to struggle. Look - it is evening, look, it is nearly night: what do you speak of, poets, lovers, generals? The wind is level now, the earth is wet with dew, the storm of stars in the sky will turn to quiet. And soon all of us will sleep under the earth, we who never let each other sleep above it. '

1915 I know the truth – give up all other truths! by Marina Tsvetayeva translated by Elaine Feinstein read by Cicely Herbert

Harmonica by Michael Longley read by Ian Duhig

A Dead Statesman, Rudyard Kipling 'I could not dig: I dared not rob: Therefore I lied to please the mob. Now all my lies are proved untrue And I must face the men I slew. What tale shall serve me here among Mine angry and defrauded young?'

A Dead Statesman by Rudyard Kipling read by Gerard Benson

And Yet The Books, Czeslaw Milosz ' And yet the books will be there on the shelves, separate beings, That appeared once, still wet As shining chestnuts under a tree in autumn, And, touched, coddled, began to live In spite of fires on the horizon, castles blown up, Tribes on the march, planets in motion. “We are, ” they said, even as their pages Were being torn out, or a buzzing flame Licked away their letters. So much more durable Than we are, whose frail warmth Cools down with memory, disperses, perishes. I imagine the earth when I am no more: Nothing happens, no loss, it’s still a strange pageant, Women’s dresses, dewy lilacs, a song in the valley. Yet the books will be there on the shelves, well born, Derived from people, but also from radiance, heights.'

And Yet the Books by Czeslaw Milosz read by Gerard Benson

Accordionist, George Szirtes ' The accordionist is a blind intellectual carrying an enormous typewriter whose keys grow wings as the instrument expands into a tall horizontal hat that collapses with a tubercular wheeze. My century is a sad one of collapses. The concertina of the chest; the tubular bells of the high houses; the flattened ellipses of our skulls that open like petals. We are the poppies sprinkled along the field. We are simple crosses dotted with blood. Beware of the sentiments concealed in this short rhyme. Be wise. Be good.'

Accordionist read by George Szirtes

Poems for Peace

Moment in a Peace March by Grace Nichols

Moment in a Peace March, Grace Nichols ‘A holy multitude pouring Moment in a Peace March through the gates of Hyde Park – A great hunger repeated in cities all over the world’

And they shall beate their swords into plow-shares Isiah 2.4, King James Bible

Isaiah 2.4 'And they shall beate their swords into plow-shares, and their speares into pruning hookes; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learne warre any more'

Optimistic Little Poem by Hans Magnus Enzensberger translated by David Constantine

Optimistic Little Poem Hans Magnus Enzensberger tr. David Constantine ' Now and then it happens that somebody shouts for help and somebody else jumps in at once and absolutely gratis. Here in the thick of the grossest capitalism round the corner comes the shining fire brigade and extinguishes, or suddenly there's silver in the beggar's hat. Mornings the streets are full of people hurrying here and there without daggers in their hands, quite equably after milk or radishes. As though in a time of deepest peace. A splendid sight.'

George Square by Jackie Kay

George Square by Jackie Kay ' My seventy-seven-year-old father put his reading glasses on to help my mother do the buttons on the back of her dress. ‘What a pair the two of us are!’ my mother said, ‘Me with my sore wrist, you with your bad eyes, your soft thumbs!’ And off they went, my two parents to march against the war in Iraq, him with his plastic hips, her with her arthritis, to congregate at George Square, where the banners waved at each other like old friends, flapping, where they’d met for so many marches over their years, for peace on earth, for pity’s sake, for peace, for peace.' Reprinted by permission of Bloodaxe Books from Darling: New & Selected Poems (2007)

from Piers Plowman by William Langland

from Piers Plowman by William Langland (c. 1332-1400) "After sharp showers," said Peace, "the sun shines brightest; No weather is warmer than after watery clouds, Nor any love dearer, or more loving friends Than after war and woe, when Love and Peace are masters. There was never war in this world, or wickedness so keen, That Love, if he liked, could not turn to laughter, And Peace, through patience, put an end to all perils." Illustration "God spede ye plough", Trinity MS R.3.14, f.1v reprinted by permission of the Master and Fellows of Trinity College Cambridge

And Now Goodbye by Jaroslav Seifert tr. Ewald Osers

World Poems on the Underground And now goodbye, Jaroslav Seifert. Poetry is with us from the start.

Autumn Poems on the Underground from October 2025

Epitaph on a Tyrant by W H Auden Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after, And the poetry he invented was easy to understand; He knew human folly like the back of his hand, And was greatly interested in armies and fleets; When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter, And when he cried the little children died in the streets.

Epitaph on a Tyrant by W H Auden read by George Szirtes

Copyright © Janet Frame 2006

I Take Into My Arms More Than I Can Bear To Hold by Janet Frame I take into my arms more than I can bear to hold I am toppled by the world a creation of ladders, pianos, stairs cut into the rock a devouring world of teeth where even the common snail eats the heart out of a forest as you and I do, who are human, at night yet still I take into my arms more than I can bear to hold Reprinted by permission of The Wylie Agency from Storms Will Tell: Selected Poems (Bloodaxe Books 2008)

I take into my arms more than I can bear to hold by Janet Frame read by Imtiaz Dharker

won’t you celebrate with me by Lucille Clifton won’t you celebrate with me what i have shaped into a kind of life? i had no model. born in babylon both nonwhite and woman what did i see to be except myself? i made it up here on this bridge between starshine and clay, my one hand holding tight my other hand; come celebrate with me that everyday something has tried to kill me and has failed. from The Book of Light. Copyright © 1993 by Lucille Clifton. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Copper Canyon Press

won’t you celebrate with me by Lucille Clifton read by Valerie Bloom

Overcrowding by Katalin Szlukovényi translated by George Szirtes Too much memory. Too many people and things. Each move we make drags a whole wagon of consequences in its wake, opening old wounds. We should try to live out of one suitcase and tread the grass barefoot, not treading on wasps’ nests. Reprinted by permission of the author and translator

Overcrowding by Katalin Szlukovényi read by George Szirtes

William at four days old by Jack Underwood When the lock chucks familiar, or a cat follows its name from a room, when silence is strung, or rain holds back the trees, I thought I had the lever of these. But weighing your fine melon head, your innocent daring to be, and mouth-first searching, your tiny fist is allowed absolutely and I am uncooked -- I can feel my socks being on – utter, precious apple, churchyards flatten in my heart, I’ve never been brilliant so scared. Reprinted by permission of Faber from Happiness (2015)

Listen to the Black History Month Recordings

Poems on the Underground 40 Poems for 40 Years Leaflet

Listen to all the poems in the Poems on the Underground 40 Poems for 40 Years leaflet

New Poems Autumn 2026

New Poems Summer 2026

New Poems February 2026

New Poems Autumn 2025

New Poems Summer 2025

New Poems Spring 2025

Poems from October 2026

Poems from September 2026

Poems from August 2026

Poems from July 2026

Poems from June 2026

Poems from May 2026

Poems from April 2026

Poems from March 2026

Poems from February 2026

Poems from January 2026

Poems from 2025

Poems from 2024

poems from 2023

poems from 2022

poems from 2021

Poems from 2020

Listen to Windrush Day Recordings

40 Poems for 40 Years leaflet

Listen to the Poems from 40 Poems for 40 Years

Love Poems Leaflet

February Poems Leaflet

War Poems on the Underground leaflet

Poems on the Underground at the Scottish Poetry Library