Score one for the arts—Poetry in Motion is coming back! Four years after the popular MTA program was discontinued and two years after its odd replacement, "Train of Thought," was nixed as well, the MTA today is announcing that the original is coming back! It won't be exactly the same as the old program, but we don't care. This is good news.
Though it had some hiccups in quality, the original Poetry in Motion ran for 15 years on subways and buses (and led to a lovely book we still keep in our bathroom). The new Poetry in Motion will, at least initially, instead run just on subways, MTA computer kiosks and some 11 percent of MetroCards issues (so not on buses). The old Poetry in Motions were sponsored, while the new ones will be paid for out of the MTA's budget ("It’s not costing us new expenses," Sandra Bloodworth, a transportation authority official, assures the Times, though "we would love to have sponsorship."). And most notably the new Poetry in Motions will not be on the horizontal placards on top of subways, instead they'll be living on the square ads by the doors. And in addition to poems (selected by the Poetry Society of America), they will also include art that will be in "conversation" with the poems.
The goal is to run two new poems a quarter, for about eight a year. First up is a poem called “Graduation,” by Dorothea Tanning, which you can see above. We don't know about you, but suddenly our day just a little brighter. Can't wait? You can explore some of the old selections over here.
