Biographical Poetry posted November 2, 2024


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A perspective on a life

In Memorium (John Keats)

by estory

     I
 
John Keats' statue stands there
As if he were risen from his grave,
Reciting his poetry
In this little, country garden
 
With the birds flying around his head.
Daffodils and tulips
Spring up at his feet,
Coming back to life
 
Like Endymion, or ST. Agnes' Eve.
 
     II
 
John Keats' statue still stands among us,
Trapped in the joys and sorrows of love,
Reading his poetry over and over
For the ears of Fanny Braun
As if the consumption never claimed him
Or she was never lost on the moors.
 
He seems to linger on here,
And a crowd begins to gather
On the anniversary of his death,
But they struggle to understand him
And the Nightinggale and the Grecian Urn
Never quite take shape again from his words.
 
     III
 
So here is John Keats' statue
With a sonnet engraved beneath it,
His figure still holding a book,
One hand raised,
Just as he was in real life.
 
And we stand with him,
Feeling what he must feel
As we place those flowers
At the foot of his grave.
 
We tremble in the face of what is no longer there.



Recognized


This poem is a tribute in some ways to one of my favorite poets, the great John Keats, who wrote some of the most influential poems of the romantic era. He and Fanny Braun, his fiancee, were among the romantics, and the lives they lived, truly romantic in tragedy as well as triumph. They were never able to consumate their marriage since Keats was diagnosed with tuberculosis soon after, and he died at age 24 in Italy. It is worth thinking about that he wrote such amazing poems as Bright Star, Ode to Autumn and Ode to a Grecian Urn while still quite young. Fanny never remarried, and the legend is that she wandered the moors reciting his poems. But while they couldn't find happiness in real life, they wrote some of the greatest poems that still inspire us to this day. I encourage all to read his amazing work. But this poem is also about our perception of what he was, versus what the reality of his life was. All these years later, we romanticize the pain and the tragedy that they must have felt. And while we can resurrect their poetry, we don't really know what THEIR feelings about these poems were. We are left with the romantic imperfection of experience. estory
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