On a summer night it can be lovely to sit around outside with friends after dinner and yes read poetry to each other. Keats and Yeats will never let you down but it's differently exciting to read the work of poets who are still walking around out there.

As for how criticism of Keats' poetry relates to criticism of my own work I'll leave that for others to decide.

For awhile after you quit Keats all other poetry seems to be only whistling or humming.

I can get very philosophical and ask the questions Keats was asking as a young guy. What are we here for? What's a soul? What's it all about? What is thinking about imagination?

There's no artist in this world that doesn't enjoy the dream that if they have bad reviews now the story of Keats can redeem them in their fantasy or imagination in the future. I think Keats' poem 'Endymion' is a really difficult poem and I'm not surprised that a lot of people pulled it apart in a way.

It's been such a deep and amazing journey for me getting close to John Keats and also I love Shelley and Byron. I mean the thing about the Romantic poets is that they've got the epitaph of romantic posthumously. They all died really young and Keats the youngest of them all.