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Poems on the Underground (POTU) is a project, started in 1986, to bring poetry to a wider audience by displaying various poems on the London Underground rapid transit network and participating websites. Poems on the Underground displays poems by contemporary and classic poets three times a year. POTU also produces booklets free of charge to the public and publishes anthologies. [1]
Launched in 1986, the Poems on the Underground programme was the idea of three writers, Judith Chernaik, Gerard Benson, and Cicely Herbert whose aim was to bring poetry to a wider audience. Judith Chernaik, Cicely Herbert, Imtiaz Dharker, and George Szirtes now select poems for inclusion in the programme. London Underground provides space on its fleet of trains, and they and POTU's partners also display the poems on their websites during the duration of the print display. The posters are designed by Tom Davidson. [1]
The first book containing all the featured poems was not published until much later, having been initially rejected by Faber as unlikely to prove commercially viable. In the end, towards the end of the decade, a young Publisher's Representative (salesman) persuaded his employers – Cassell Publishing – to publish the tome when, having failed in his attempt to buy the as-yet non-existent publication as a birthday present for his mother, he felt sufficiently confident of making it a bestseller. He was set a target by the publishing house of selling 5,000 copies by the Christmas following publication, or risk losing his job. But the book – which is still very much in print 27 years later and must rank as one of the best-selling poetry books of all time – immediately sold out and went straight to reprint prior to publication.
Partners for Poems on the Underground include London Underground, which generously supports the programme, and the Arts Council of England, the British Council, London Arts and the Poetry Society.
A series of different poems are displayed at any given time, ranging from classical and historical works by such well-loved poets as Blake, Shakespeare and Shelley, to contemporary and emerging poets from around the world. The works are displayed three times a year and have proved extremely popular with the travelling public.
Recent booklets, distributed free to the public, include Young Poets on the Underground, London Poems on the Underground, Irish Poems on the Underground, and World Poems on the Underground. Poems on the Underground also publishes anthologies of Poems on the Underground and the most recent edition is Poems on the Underground, A New Edition, Penguin, 2012.
Captain Robert von Ranke Graves was a British poet, historical novelist and critic. His father was Alfred Perceval Graves, a celebrated Irish poet and figure in the Gaelic revival; they were both Celticists and students of Irish mythology. Graves produced more than 140 works in his lifetime. His poems, his translations and innovative analysis of the Greek myths, his memoir of his early life—including his role in World War I—Good-Bye to All That, and his speculative study of poetic inspiration The White Goddess have never been out of print. He is also a renowned short story writer, with stories such as "The Tenement" still being popular today.
Imagism was a movement in early-20th-century Anglo-American poetry that favored precision of imagery and clear, sharp language. It is considered to be the first organized modernist literary movement in the English language. Imagism is sometimes viewed as "a succession of creative moments" rather than a continuous or sustained period of development. The French academic René Taupin remarked that "it is more accurate to consider Imagism not as a doctrine, nor even as a poetic school, but as the association of a few poets who were for a certain time in agreement on a small number of important principles".
Performance poetry is a broad term, encompassing a variety of styles and genres. In brief, it is poetry that is specifically composed for or during a performance before an audience. During the 1980s, the term came into popular usage to describe poetry written or composed for performance rather than print distribution, mostly open to improvisation.
Children of Albion: Poetry of the Underground in Britain, an anthology of poetry, was edited by Michael Horovitz and published by Penguin Books in 1969. According to Martin Booth it was "virtually a manifesto of New Departures doctrine and dogma".
Geoffrey Edward Harvey Grigson was a British poet, writer, editor, critic, exhibition curator, anthologist and naturalist. In the 1930s he was editor of the influential magazine New Verse, and went on to produce 13 collections of his own poetry, as well as compiling numerous anthologies, among many published works on subjects including art, travel and the countryside. Grigson exhibited in the London International Surrealist Exhibition at New Burlington Galleries in 1936, and in 1946 co-founded the Institute of Contemporary Arts. Grigson's autobiography The Crest on the Silver was published in 1950. At various times he was involved in teaching, journalism and broadcasting. Fiercely combative, he made many literary enemies.
Ana Blandiana is a Romanian poet, essayist, and political figure. She is considered one of the famous contemporary Romanian authors. She took her name after Blandiana, near Vințu de Jos, Alba County, her mother's home village.
Anthony Simon Thwaite was an English poet and critic, widely known as the editor of his friend Philip Larkin's collected poems and letters.
The Mersey Sound is an anthology of poems by Liverpool poets Roger McGough, Brian Patten and Adrian Henri first published in 1967, when it launched the poets into "considerable acclaim and critical fame". It went on to sell over 500,000 copies, becoming one of the bestselling poetry anthologies of all time. The poems are characterised by "accessibility, relevance and lack of pretension", as well as humour, liveliness and at times melancholy. The book was, and continues to be, widely influential with its direct and often witty language, urban references such as plastic daffodils and bus conductors, and frank, but sensitive depictions of intimacy.
Olive Marjorie Senior is a Jamaican poet, novelist, short story and non-fiction writer based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She was awarded the Musgrave Gold Medal in 2005 by the Institute of Jamaica for her contributions to literature.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
David John Murray Wright was an author and "an acclaimed South African-born poet".
Alvin Pang was named 2005 Young Artist of the Year (Literature) by the National Arts Council Singapore. He holds a First Class Honours degree in English literature from the University of York and an Honorary Fellowship in Writing from the University of Iowa's International Writing Program (2002). In 2020, he was awarded a PhD in Writing from RMIT University, and appointed to the honorary position of Adjunct Professor of RMIT University in 2021. For his contributions, he was conferred the Singapore Youth Award in 2007, and the JCCI Foundation Education Award in 2008. He is listed in the Oxford Companion to Modern Poetry in English.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Barry Tebb is an English poet, publisher and author. He was born in Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire in 1942.
"Poetry and the Microphone" is an essay by English writer George Orwell. It refers to his work at the BBC’s Eastern Service broadcasting half-hour-long literary programmes to India in the format of an imaginary monthly literary magazine. Written in 1943, it was not published until 1945, in New Saxon Pamphlet. Orwell had by then left the BBC.
A miscellany is a collection of various pieces of writing by different authors. Meaning a mixture, medley, or assortment, a miscellany can include pieces on many subjects and in a variety of different forms. In contrast to anthologies, whose aim is to give a selective and canonical view of literature, miscellanies were produced for the entertainment of a contemporary audience and so instead emphasise collectiveness and popularity. Laura Mandell and Rita Raley state:
This last distinction is quite often visible in the basic categorical differences between anthologies on the one hand, and all other types of collections on the other, for it is in the one that we read poems of excellence, the "best of English poetry," and it is in the other that we read poems of interest. Out of the differences between a principle of selection and a principle of collection, then, comes a difference in aesthetic value, which is precisely what is at issue in the debates over the "proper" material for inclusion into the canon.
Malika Booker is a British writer, poet and multi-disciplinary artist, who is considered "a pioneer of the present spoken word movement" in the UK. Her writing spans different genres of storytelling, including poetry, theatre, monologue, installation and education, and her work has appeared widely in journals and anthologies. Organizations for which she has worked include Arts Council England, the BBC, British Council, Wellcome Trust, National Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company, Arvon, and Hampton Court Palace.