End of the Line

After more than fifteen years, the Poetry in Motion program that put poems by W.S. Merwin, Lucille Clifton, Lorine Niedecker, and Emily Dickinson—among many, many others—alongside ads for Dr. Z’s acne treatment and Lasik surgery on New York City’s subways, has ended.
The New York Times reported last month that the "Poetry in Motion" partnership between the Poetry Society of America and the Metro Transportation Authority would phase out in May and transform into a new SubTalk program entitled “Train of Thought.”
The new program will still feature one poem a year, but will focus more on quotations from history, philosophy, and science. The new quotations will be chosen by Columbia University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences for, according to their press release, “both their significance and accessibility.”
Alicia Martinez, MTA’s Director of Marketing & Corporate Communications, says, “New Yorkers have wide-ranging interests, and we felt that we could include material from a variety of other disciplines in addition to poetry to bring important, engaging, insightful quotes to our riders, and entice them to explore the author or subject further. We believe this approach will reach a broader and larger audience.”
Jim Dwyer wrote a eulogy of sorts last week for “Poetry in Motion" that has made the rounds via email and blogs, but for the most part it has been a quite transition.
The program has spawned similar programs across the country, from Los Angleles to St. Louis to here in Seattle, where we have a Poetry in Motion-inspired program called Poetry on the Buses. Since I only saw "Poetry in Motion" in fits and starts, my main experience with the response to poetry on public transportation has been through Poetry on the Buses, which is mixed to say the least.