The project "Poems for..." offers A4 poem-posters for display in public areas such as healthcare waiting rooms and reception areas, libraries and class rooms. Rogan Wolf began and runs it, under the supervision of "Hyphen-21."

Until recently, the title of this project was “Poems for the Waiting Room.”

History

The project was piloted with the support of the Poetry Society and since then has been funded by the Arts Council of England, the Kings Fund, Association of London Government, London Arts, Northern Arts, the Foreign Office, NHS Estates, and the Baring Foundation ; it is being funded in 2007 by the Arts Council of England, the Department of Health Equalities and Human Rights Group and the John Lewis Partnership.

The poems are carefully chosen and well presented. The collection currently available consists of 145 poems.

Fifty of these were specially commissioned by the poet David Hart, each one addressing or inspired by the experience of waiting. Thus the poems can make a very direct connection with some of their readers as they sit, sharing the waiting experience. A few of the poems in this collection were written in non-English languages - with the English translation printed alongside. Languages included : Scottish, Irish and Welsh Gaelic ; Serbo-Croat ; Bengali ; Hindi ; Urdu.

The next fifty poems were written by well-known poets of different styles and periods, a similar range - in fact - to that of "Poems on the Underground." All the poems have been copyright-cleared. They include 10 poems especially chosen for young children.

In 2003, a further ten poems were added to the collection, at the suggestion of the then Foreign Minister for Europe, Dr Denis Macshane. One poem from each of the ten EU Enlargement countries was selected, each again with its English translation printed alongside. The poet Fiona Sampson played a major part in the choosing and selection of the poems which were launched at a Foreign Office Open Day in April 2004, to celebrate Enlargement. Printed to a splendid AO size, the ten poems took pride of place in the famous Durbar Room, where they were studied by almost 10,000 people in the course of the day. Pdf versions of each of the EU poems can be found on the right.

Through 2004 and 2005, the collection of ten EU poems was expanded to forty five bilingual poems. Main funder was still the Arts Council, joined now by the Baring Foundation and NHS Estates (replaced in 2006 by the Departmenet of Health Equality and Human Rights Group).   The new collection was still entirely given over to bi-lingual poems, but the languages it included now ranged wider than Europe. They are as follows : Arabic, Bengali, Farsi/Persian, Hindi, Mandarin, Punjabi, Somali, Urdu and Vietnamese - as well as Albanian, Bulgarian, Czech, Dutch, Gaelic, Greek, Hungarian, Romanian, Slovakian, Slovenian, Spanish and Turkish. 

The poets Debjani Chatterjee and Stephen Watts have been of enormous help in the selection of the latest Diversity poems collection.

The complete collection of 45 poems "In Praise of Diversity" was launched by Andrew Motion the Poet Laureate in October 2005 at the Central Middlesex Hospital in West London.

There are 1,500 packs of the total collection of 145 poems still available. The packs come free of charge, although postage has to be supplied (we ask you to send a self addressed A4 jiffy bag, with a stamp on it for £5.75).

If you think Poems for... collections belong in your place of work contact us.

Progress in 2007

In the Spring of 2007, Poems for… contributed several bilingual poems to the Mayor of London’s Equalities report. The report as a whole can be accessed online on the Mayor’s website here.

Opposite, you can access the stand-alone collection of poems.

A new diversity collection will be produced during 2008, focussing quite largely on some of the languages spoken on the African continent.
 
Poetry Readings in Health Sites

Poetry readings took place between January and March 2002 in the London Boroughs of Croydon, Bromley, Merton and Bexley. Each Borough hosted two readings, one in a hospital, the other in a community health or social care setting.

The aim of the readings was partly to give live performances of Poems for... to those people for whom the collections were originally intended, and partly to promote those same collections to as many health-care settings as possible in each locality.

The idea for the readings came from Mark Homer, Director of Arts for L.B. of Croydon. Funding was mainly supplied by the Association of London Government, although each of the four Boroughs involved also contributed.

Photographers involved were Pierre Bascle and Kate Peters, to whom thanks should go. See the downloads on the right for the photo's.

Funding for 2008 includes resources for further promotional readings. We shall report on these as they take place.