It has been a long time since I put anything up here on the Poetry Corner. There are two reasons for this: I caught Covid, and though it wasn’t bad, the lingering aftereffects are making me tired; I spent over a month in Rome (and caught Covid from that guy on the train from Florence!) where I was teaching a class.

Now that I’m back and more or less recovered from jet lag and Covid, I want to talk about Rome and poetry. Rome, the Eternal City, has one of the most poetic nicknames for any city I can think of, and it has been inspiring poets for at least 2,700 years, give or take a year or two.

On my first trip to Rome in 2019, I noticed a wall in Trastevere with the words “THINK POETIC” painted in foot-high letters (or, since it was Rome and Rome uses the metric system, 30 cm high letters). Painted above the words was the smiling face of a child gazing at a book. I liked the idea and the way the message and artistry stood out in a city literally covered in street art.

On my next trip in 2022, I saw the THINK POETIC tags everywhere: in red paint in Trastevere, in black paint in Ponte, in white paint on a blue door in Parione. Closer inspection showed what I assumed was the artist’s identification tag, “Qwerty” in smaller letters below the big exhortation. Qwerty also created other literate art pieces, and my favorites were small crosswords made with Scrabble tiles glued to walls in small streets that you could only find if you were looking closely.

On this trip, I was relieved to see that Qwerty still lives in Rome. One building had been repainted, but the painters went around the sign and left THINK POETIC untouched, a little detail that made me happy every time I walked past the building. My unknown poetic friend had also added a new twist on the tagging game, and I saw THINK POETIC stickers posted in several places. Unfortunately, I was never able to figure out where I could get my hands on some of those stickers.

Rome’s poetic nature is not limited to fun graffiti, however. Countless poets spent time in Rome, and perhaps the most famous to have done so is John Keats, who traveled to Rome in the hope that its milder climate might help cure his tuberculosis. Unfortunately, it did not help, and he died in his apartment next to the Spanish Steps after only a few months. Keats pilgrims can today visit the house, which is now a lovely museum, and see notebooks, paintings, and the room where the poet died. It is also worth the walk to Testaccio to visit the Cimiterio Accatolico, where you can sit and gaze at Keats’s grave (and Percy Shelley’s and Gregory Corso’s) while one of the graveyard’s many cats comes up to say buongiorno.

The grave of English Poet John Keats. Photo courtesy of Rick MaGee

In honor of the great English poet who died far too young, I’d like to end with one of his poems:

WHERE’S THE POET?

Where’s the Poet? show him, show him,

Muses nine, that I may know him!

‘Tis the man who with a man

Is an equal, be he King,

Or poorest of the beggar-clan,

Or any other wondrous thing

A may be ‘twixt ape and Plato;

“Tis the man who with a bird,

Wren or Eagle, find his way to

All its instincts; he hath heard

The Lion’s roaring, and can tell

What his horny throat expresseth,

And to him the Tiger’s yell

Comes articulate and presseth

On his ear like mother-tongue.

‍

Play the Slideshow