Top 6 - John Keats

Whatever it is that Keats' poetry has to say, his world view is probably a bit dubious and 'Romantic' just doesn't seem very fashionable right now. However, poetry is perhaps not primarily valued for what it actually means as much as how it expresses it and Keats is the paragon example of much that we seem to expect of a 'poet'. His language is gorgeous and sublime and his life so short and productive he inevitably takes his place very high up in the pantheon.

On First Looking into Chapman's Homer is wonderful, Ode on a Grecian Urn similarly beguiling. To Autumn is a lush celebration of language and 'When I Have Fears that I May Cease To Be' is perfectly made and exemplary. Ode to a Nightingale and Ode on Melancholy demonstrate the excesses that define Romantic poetry for us now but if the world is really unworthy of our more escapist aspirations, they've never been so dreamily rendered. A part of his legacy has been to leave us with this stereotype idea of a poet is but that is mainly because he did it all so well.

Bright Star is on at No. 6 Cinema, Portsmouth, at the end of the month and one can hardly wait to swoon along with it.