Program Brings Poetry to Mass Transit Systems

Poetry in Motion® reaches 13 million daily in 14 American cities

When visitors to the United States get on the bus, subway or train, they might be surprised in several cities to find themselves reading poetry rather than advertisements. Usually the poetry is in English, but some bilingual posters have featured poems in Cherokee, French, Russian, Spanish and Japanese.

On the Los Angeles transportation system, for example, the poems have included work by the Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz, the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca, the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, the Greek poet Sappho and Japanese poets Kobayashi Issa, Izumi Shikibu and Otomo No Sakanoe. The poetry is brought to riders courtesy of a program called Poetry in Motion®, which was first developed by the Poetry Society of America and the MTA New York City Transit in 1992 and was inaugurated with a reading at the New York Transit Museum.

Inspired originally by a similar program in the London Underground transit system, Poetry in Motion® now has spread to 14 U.S. cities and reaches 13 million people daily. Cities participating in the program include Dallas, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, New Orleans, New York, Salt Lake City, St. Louis and Washington, as well as Boise, Idaho; Fort Collins, Colorado; Fresno, California; Hartford, Connecticut; Jacksonville, Florida; Little Rock, Arkansas; and Portland, Oregon.

Poetry in Motion® stands at the core of the Poetry Society of America's (PSA) mission "to place poetry at the crossroads of American life," the program's director, Anita Naegeli, told USINFO. "The uniqueness of our program is that we are bringing poetry into the daily lives of millions of people by placing poems on the subways and buses across the country. Simply by reading these poems while in transit, readers become part of the poetry community. But of course, we hope that the program stirs curiosity and interest in literature and [in] poetry in particular, and as a result, readers will go to a reading or open a book and start reading."

The committee that chooses the poems tries to cover a broad range of poets - local, national, and international - from diverse backgrounds, Naegeli said. "The selection of featured poems should ... be a reflection of the diversity of our society," she added. "If reading a poem has put a smile on someone's face or urged them to reflect on something in a different way, then I think the program has had an impact."

Response to the program and specific poems has been overwhelmingly positive, she said.

One woman, Naegeli said, wrote in to express gratitude for the program, saying a poem she memorized on her daily commute has been "a great help during dentist's visits, let me tell you!"

Another fan likes to watch the reaction of others as they read the poems.

Seventy-nine percent of those who commute by train, bus or subway report that they have seen or heard poetry on public transportation, suggesting that programs like Poetry in Motion® are reaching large numbers of commuters effectively, according to Poetry in America, the first national, in-depth survey of people's attitudes toward and experiences with poetry. Poetry in America was conducted in 2005 on behalf of the Poetry Foundation.

The success of Poetry in Motion® is yet another sign that the audience for poetry in the United States today is "terrific," as Charles Simic, U.S. poet laureate, recently told USINFO. Ever since the so-called "Beat" poets of the 1950s and early 1960s, Simic said, poetry readings have been "really, really popular everywhere, so that there isn't a college, university or community center in this country that doesn't have a poetry series. People are used to going to poetry readings. The audiences are huge." (See related article.)

In a newer variation on the program called Branching Out, which was launched in seven cities, Poetry in Motion® posters feature poems by distinguished contemporary poets who are giving talks in public library systems. Inaugurated in the spring of 2005, Branching Out is a joint initiative by Poets House and the Poetry Society of America and is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

From May 1 to May 31, the European Union exhibited poetry in buses and subway stations in Washington as a way of commemorating the European Union's 50th anniversary. European Poetry in Motion, as it was called, featured five poems from each of the European Union member states in both their original language and in English.

More information about the Poetry in Motion® program is available on the Web site of the Poetry Society of America.

A summary (PDF, 37 pages) of the study Poetry in America is available on the Web site of the National Opinion Research Center.

For more stories about the influence of poets and other artists in society, see The Arts.

Source: U.S. Department of State

judythpiazza@newsblaze.com

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