Roma

(Leaf 11) – Looking Back

 

Graves of John Keats & Joseph Severn, Rome (2001)

I first studied John Keats when I was a student at Sixth Form College in Harrow, and I’ve continued to read his poems ever since. In 2001, while working in Rome, a friend and I got the chance to visit Keats-Shelley House and Keats’ grave. We later visited Wentworth Place together on a warm, rainy day when we got back to London (see Leaf 12). Little did I know at the time, but my affinity for Keats might have deeper roots than that first and wholly entrancing introduction to his works in the classroom, because I’ve since found out that I have forbears who married, whose names were Keats and Jennings (Keats’ mother’s maiden name), living in a part of London close to where Keats’ family lived. I can’t be 100% sure of a connection, family trees are difficult things to trace, but the coincidence seems fairly unusual (I’ve written more about it on my other blog: ‘Waymarks’). This poem was originally published in still 5: three (2001).

 

 

ROMA

 

Draping Amy’s daisy chain

– already wilted –

across an unnamed Poet’s stone;

a black cat pads gently

across the grass to greet us.

Amy & Tim at Keats-Shelley House, Rome (2001)

 

Photographs by Tim Chamberlain.