Thinking about Poetry, which inevitably turns to Keats

Having found out a while back that a professor of mine has a blog, I've been visiting it every once in a while (couple times a week). This past week, she had a post about poetry classes and how many students are afraid of poetry. Which made me think of when I took her class, wherein I created this blog, which made me think of Keats and well, this blog.

I posted about it on my "writer" blogspot, but in forming that haphazard post (I can only hope it makes sense to others, because to me, the sound of it and the poetics let the meaning slip away, much like Virginia Woolf's thought-fish (assuming I remember -that- correctly).

But anyway. In writing that post, I thought of this one and said when Keats jumped out at me, I'd update. Then I wondered if he was on facebook. And he is! Not that I was really surprised.

The facebook search for "John Keats" gave me 265 results, although I'm sure some of them must be living breathing Keats' who just happened to share the name. Some of whom may in fact -not- be poetically inclined! I know, gasp, right? (I'm getting silly, I know, been a long day.)

What I like are the fan pages with titles such as "John Keats is a sexy mofo," or "John Keats: An Emo?!" Because, of course he was emo. Even without the guyliner, although that particular page has added it to the proile picture, along with a single emo tear.

"I'd put out for John Keats" is listed as Entertainment & Arts--Celebrity. 304 members currently. I love that. Keats, dead since the 1820s, is a modern-day celebrity. That tickles me.

Obviously, as soon as I saw this, I became a fan, admittedly of a "regular" fan page, within which members post videos and talk about theses and studying done about Keats.

In the pro-Keats, we have "I love Keats, more than I probably should" with 52 members, while anti-Keats has "The People who hate John Keats poetry" with only 11 members.

There are student groups, "Just for Fun" groups, and personal facebooks that look like they may be school projects. (I think it'd be to see a John Keats fb with someone acting as Keats. Hard to tell though, with so many that have no pictures, and others with little information in the search results.) ...I don't really have a proper conclusion to this post. Mostly I was just excited to share the information. Go out, junketians! Keats is out there, roaming cyber-space.

Bibliography

A Song About Myself. http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=KeaMyse.xml&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=1&division=div1. University of Virginia Library. 4-23-08

City of London. http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/Corporation/leisure_heritage/libraries_archives_museums_galleries/keats_house. 3-12-08

Coombs, Heather. “Nature as Imagination.” English Romanticism. Ed. Laura Egendorf. The Greenhaven Press Companion to Literary Movements and Genres. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2001.

De Man, Paul. Ed. The Selected Poetry of John Keats. New York: Meridian Classic, 1966.

Directory of Lost Causes. “Invisible and Dumb.” http://my.opera.com/quentinscrisp/blog/show.dml/342773 July 10, 2006. Quentin Crisp. 4-13-08

Egendorf, Laura K. Ed. English Romanticism. The Greenhaven Press Companion to Literary
Movements and Genres. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2001.

Enjoying “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” by John Keats. http://www.pathguy.com/lbdsm.htm. Ed Friedlander, M.D. 4-23-08

Google Books: Writers on writing, by Robert Pack and Jay Parini. http://books.google.com/books?id=He3aRBskI_0C&pg=PA126&lpg=PA126&dq=keats+invisible+writers&source=web&ots=-5lHUCZ73N&sig=yJg2CBa5EFdGdFukfn7pew4iv6I&hl=en#PPA126,M1. 4-23-08.

IMDB: Bright Star. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0810784. The Internet Movie Database. 1990-2004. 5-5-08.

John-Keats.com. http://www.john-keats.com/ Thilo von Pape. 3-12-08

Pack, Robert. Ed. Selected Letters of John Keats. New York: Signet Classic, 1974.

Poetry Landmarks of Britain. http://more.poetrysociety.org.uk/landmark/front.php. The Poetry Society. 3-12-08

Poets.org. http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/66. The Academy of American Poets. 1997-2002. 3-12-08

Representative Poetry Online. http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poet/180.html. University of Toronto. 5-4-08

Shakespeare Geek. http://blog.shakespearegeek.com/2006/06/john-keats.html. Duane. June 26, 2006. 4-23-08

The Keats-Shelley House. http://keats-shelley-house.org/ 3-20-08

The Life and Work of John Keats. http://englishhistory.net/keats/contents.html. Marilee. March 2004. 3-12-08

Vendler, Helen. The Odes of John Keats. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983.

YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/. 3-12-08.

Videos watched include:

RIP John Keats, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8CO9gkFB3U
Rap Master Johnnie Keats, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WH7h0McMCc
John Keats: The Movie, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8e_fDij2eg
Brokeback Keats, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tWs70BneIw
To John Keats: A Sonnet, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zfntjAFnIE
Ode to a Nightingale-John Keats, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lZancDgAD0
John Keats: Ode to a Nightingale, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYK7gUKxT7U

And, because I like, a direct link to RIP Keats: