If you were stuck on a deserted island, what would you bring?

Keats said all these things. It’s as if writing was everything for him. One may talk of his love for Fanny Brawne, or for his siblings, or the tragedy of his life—all the occasions where he may have given up the pen for more worldy concerns—but still he wrote. I can only speak for myself, one voice among thousands, millions, but more than any stirring turn of phrase, more than any one line that brings tears to my eyes or grips my attention relentlessly, it is Keats’ unending passion for writing that draws me to him. The stirring turns of phrases may have introduced me, and still find ways to captivate me, but I am a writer. If I could do anything, it would be to write. If I could only do one thing, it would be to write. If I was stuck on a deserted island with only three things, they items would be a pen that would never run out of ink, paper that had no end, and my library.

(I should like to say, as a third item, my volume of poetry by Keats, but as a lover of books, I could no more chose a single favorite than I could pick one food to eat for eternity—I’d rather starve than risk gorging myself on one writer only to become sick of it and regurgitate their words.)

My first memory of Keats comes from high school, although I suspect he lurked within anthologies of earlier school years without my noticing.