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			John Keats’s grave in Rome “...Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water.”
	Life mask of John Keats	I first became acquainted with Keats’s poetry when I was in High School in Ohio, studying English literature with the wonderful Anne Ackerman. When I was in college, and ever since, Keats (and the other so-called “Romantic” poets of the early 19th century) represented for me a starting point for “modern” poetry in English. The poem below was especially significant, because it reflected the ongoing modern impulse for change and innovation. If poetry could not evolve, it could never survive let alone flourish. Poetry cannot matter if, as some would wish, poets simply returned to writing in forms. Keats understood this almost 200 years ago. The sonnet’s last two lines offer a good definition for “free verse” a century before the rise of vers libre. —ML	Martin Lammon’s introduction Sometimes I think that people believe “old” poetry was old-fashioned and easier to read, that “modern” poetry has all become experimental and inaccessible to the common reader. John Keats’s sonnet illustrates how poetry in English has a long history of innovation and experimentation. “If by dull rhymes...” also requires a thoughtful reading. A casual reader in Keats’s day, as well as our own, would have little hope of understanding, let alone appreciating, this poem. Of course, in the early 19th Century, many people lacked much education and could barely read at all. In short, Keats might have expected anyone who read his poem to be fairly well-educated. Poems that matter require readers who seek more than superficial diversion or delight, men and women who are seeking solace for the mind and the soul. Future poems here will also feature contemporary works that use language and narrative in ways that are as accessible (though no less challenging) to readers as any of, say, Robert Frost’s best and beloved poems. Would you like to recommend a “Poem that Matters”? See Reader Response for details. Poems that Matter Archive John Keats
	If by dull rhymes our English must be chain’d... If by dull rhymes our English must be chain’d, And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet sweet Fetter’d, in spite of pained loveliness; Let us find out, if we must be constrain’d, Sandals more interwoven and complete To fit the naked foot of poesy; Let us inspect the lyre, and weigh the stress Of every chord, and see what may be gain’d By ear industrious, and attention meet: Misers of sound and syllable, no less Than Midas of his coinage, let us be Jealous of dead leaves in the bay wreath crown; So, if we may not let the Muse be free, She will be bound with garlands of her own. (1818-1819)
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