A review by annataeko
John Keats by John Keats

4.0

I forgot I had yet to review this read!

First off, if you're here because you've recently watched Bright Star (starring Ben Wishaw), you've come to the right place. This is a good option for you to read all the poems mentioned in the film.

Having said that, this selection of poems wisely chosen by Andrew Motion shares common themes and similar moods. Hence, I thought of mentioning some of them to you, in case you feel like reading something which matches your current mood. Melancholy is one of the most prominent themes and most palpable ones in Keats's poems. Along with melancholy, there is also the sense of loss. Now that the 14th of February approaches, the theme of mutual love is very recurrent as well.

Something I enjoy doing when reading poetry is drawing – doodling, rather – on the margins of the verses about what the poem is symbolically picturing in my mind at that precise moment – if it happens to be something vivid and clear. This selection of poems fulfilled my imagination enormously and the fact that I have drawn many doodlings throughout this selection, it speaks for its own. Personally, the good thing about this man is not that he was extremely talented in what he did, but that you almost feel like you're part of his poems; and if not, you end up feeling that you are actually part of them, of what he expresses in them. Look, highly recommended.

Happy reading, x