Depending on perception, John Keats (October 31, 1795 – February 23, 1821) came to poetry quite late in life, only four years before he died. Or rather, he came to poetry quite early in life for Keats was only twenty-one when he published his first poem.Young except perhaps when compared to Arthur Rimbaud who wrote A Season in Hell at seventeen.

In 1815 Keats registered as a medical student at Guy's Hospital. He showed aptitude, became a surgeon's apprentice and before long received an apothecary's license, meaning he could treat illnesses medicinally or surgically.



The medical profession, however, did not suit the young Keats, and he officially declared his intentions to become a poet in 1816. That same year he submitted his first poem, "O Solitude" for publication. Its famous first line spoke of Keats' personality (and keeps him relevant to many today); "O Solitude! if I must with thee dwell/Let it not be among the jumbled heap."



The totality of life events - Keats moved, wrote, published, moved more, became ill, lost members of his family, loved and lost - could fill any life to the brim. But when you realize that he only wrote and published poetry for four years (the last six months of which he was bedridden) the density of such life becomes astounding. Expansive. Exhausting.

"Three small volumes of verse, some earnest friendships, one passion, and a premature death," wrote one of Keats earliest biographers.

When I imagine Keats' turbulent mind, his disquieted heart and rotting lungs, how he left an established trade to pursue poetry (two centuries before it became fashion), how he lost both parents before he was fourteen and a brother soon after, when I imagine what it must have been like for him, these lines from "Sleep and Poetry" written in 1816 act as a reverse cipher to so much of Keats' work. This idea that lofty poetry and the imaginative, body-freeing work that produces it shall grant adventure, even eternity. The idea that sleep and poetry are entwined outside reason and allow a transcendence, that was key to Keats existence, to his poetic creation.

O for ten years, that I may overwhelm
Myself in poesy; so I may do the deed
That my own soul has to itself decreed.
Then will I pass the countries that I see
In long perspective, and continually.
From John Keats' "Sleep and Poetry"

For a substantial portion of his life - poetic or otherwise - Keats must have known he would die young, or at least suffer. Tuberculous was, after all, a family disease and he had already lost his mother and a brother to the lung-rotting illness. When you read John Keats' letters or poetry, it is possible, no, critical to pay attention to what was created in the spring vs. the winter vs. autumn. The subsequent effect of one thing on another and the density of existence. There are principles of exactness that accompany such small things.

In 1819, well into the poetic profession but a stranger to financial stability, Keats received a letter from his brother George that the latter had lost a substantial amount of money on John James Audubon's (yes, the noted bird illustrator) scheme to develop lands near the Mississippi River in the United States. Skint himself, John Keats left London for the Isle of Wight and later Winchester, the ancient British capital, where he tried to live cheaply, save money for George, and encourage his publishers to advance monies for future work. An appeal denied.

I gleamed this particular verse from my collection of poems selected by Andrew Motion, Britain's Poet Laureate from 1999 to 2010 and a brilliant poet of the narrative tradition. (It was a boon that the cover is designed by the exquisite Angela Harding whose puzzles keep me in vast comfort). Savour the full poem "To Autumn" here.