Saturday, January 08, 2011

Heaney, Keats and Hardy on Tube

The Bookseller - 7.01.11 - Charlotte Williams


Poems by Keats, Hardy and Seamus Heaney are among those selected for a new collection of Poems on the Underground, marking 25 years of verse on display on the Tube.

The theme of this latest set is the value of the written word, with lines from John Keats' "Endymion", "Lines to a Movement in Mozart's E-flat Symphony" by Thomas Hardy, "Colmcille the Scribe" by Seamus Heaney and "A Riddle" by Gerard Benson, poet laureate for Bradford and one of the founder-editors of Poems on the Underground, among those included in the new series.

Judith Chernaik, founder of Poems on the Underground, said: "After 25 years it's amazing to think that such a simple concept is still going strong. When we thought of the idea all those years ago we never imagined it would be copied around the world."

Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, said: "Poems on the Underground is a stroke of pure genius and that's why it's stood the test of time. Mozart used to see colours when he composed and we hope this new set of poems will make Londoners' journeys more colourful and interesting."

Leaflets with the new poems as well as a few poems from other years will be available at central London stations later this month.

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