January 2015: What’s been Happening

The Winter has seen the welcome appointment of two new Trustees, Vivienne Littlechild and John Scott from the CoL, with further new Trustees shortly to be announced.

Thanks to Trustee Judith Palmer, a wreath was laid at Westminster Abbey on 31st October, Keats’s 219th birthday, and on the same day the Keats Foundation co-hosted a seminar at the Keats-Shelley House, Rome.

Plans for the bicentenary John Keats Conference at Guy’s Hospital, 1-3 May, are at an advanced stage with over 34 papers promised for the programme. Michael O’Neill’s lecture, ‘The Potency of Song’: Keats’s Presence in Poetry from Hardy to Heaney, will be presented at Keats House Hampstead on the evening of Thursday 28 May.

Pending agreement with Keats House, the Keats Foundation will be pleased to announce financial support for the highly successful Keats House Poets programme in year 2015-16. This furthers our mission to encourage enjoyment and understanding of John Keats’s poems, letters, life and times and to inspire new generations of young poets to fulfil their creative ambitions. We are closely engaged with and support a broad spectrum of educational and creative initiatives at Keats House, Hampstead, including, talks, lectures, poetry readings, and Keats-related conferences.