Inspired by a reading of As You Like It, Judith Chernaik, an American writer living in London, conceived a plan to scatter poetry across the underground as the love-sick Orlando hangs sonnets through the Forest of Arden. Her simple idea took root below the sewers and spread to cities across the world. Poetry in Motion launched in New York in 1992, and today poems can be found on public transport in Dublin, Paris, Beijing, Shanghai, Warsaw and Moscow.
They are credited with bringing creative inspiration to millions every day - a simple idea that has been copied in cities across the world. In 1986 the first Poems on the Underground appeared in Tube carriages, and both commuters and visitors to London have been pondering their meaning ever since. Transport for London will be marking the 40th anniversary of this "art for all" project with new works, poetry readings and displays of poems at London Underground stations.