Book description
The now familiar poem posters first appeared in London's tube and
underground trains in 1986. The idea was simple enough: why not convert
the empty advertising space above the passenger's heads into a simple
celebration of the poetry that has underscored English literature for a
thousand years or more? The poems soon caught the public's imagination.
Here on the trains there was at last something different, words to
soothe, inspire, move, charm, surprise, arouse, even occasionally to
shock, but never to sell. The programme grew, and attracted
international attention, so that now there are similar programmes of
public poetry on transport systems around the world, from New York to
Shanghai, including Dublin, Paris, Athens, Stuttgart, St. Petersburg,
Moscow, San Francisco and Barcelona. This latest anthology brings
together the best of all of them in a single volume. You can turn the
pages and find limericks, great works of romantic poetry, ancient Gallic
texts, Spike Milligan nesting alongside Dylan Thomas. As a journey of
literary discovery, old favourites alongside the new, this much
travelled collection of exceptional poetry has no equal. Forget the
literary canon - here is the canon of human life.
