The new summer set of Poems on the Underground goes live on London Underground and Overground cars on Monday 3 June 2024 for four weeks.
The new summer set will be launched with a poetry reading by Imtiaz Dharker and Nii Ayikwei Parkes at Covent Garden Underground Station on Monday 3 June at 11.30-12.00.
One of the poems featured is "By Yourself, Boy. . . (1988-2007)" by Nii Ayikwei Parkes, from his 2010 collection, The Makings of You.
More about Poems on the Underground
We are delighted to welcome the joys of summer and its special music with a truly international set of poems: a tribute to the 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 for the Shropshire lads lost in the First World War; and an extract from the late Benjamin Zephaniah’s celebration of our common origins as "refugees".
The poems are as follows:
"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. 13th Century music manuscript
Reprinted 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)
Poems on the Underground is generously supported by TfL, Arts Council England and The British Council. It has partnerships with The Poetry Society, The National Poetry Library, and The Scottish Poetry Library. Poems are selected by writers Judith Chernaik, Imtiaz Dharker and George Szirtes. Posters, designed by Tom Davidson, can be obtained from the Poetry Society.
Posters from 1986 onwards can be accessed at the Poems on the Underground website.
Poems on the Underground: A New Edition (Penguin 2015) is available from all good bookshops.
