With apologies to Ovid. And also, I suppose, Auden, although he is wrong about poetry making nothing happen; in fact, embarrassingly so, since it's on Auden Mead in Upper Horfield, Bristol, that the poetry installation commemorating John Keats stood, with a rubbish bin sited directly in front of it.
This is how it looked when fellow-IsamBard Dominic Fisher and I scoped out our Poetry Streets of Horfield Poetry Walk almost exactly a month ago.
Reader, we were appalled. The fragmentary poem it was impossible to read without getting a noseful of Merde De Chien No 5 is called 'This Living Hand' and was written in 1819, when Keats was 23. He'd just coughed blood into his hand and, having seen his mother and
brother die of tuberculosis, knew that he was next. He died in 1821, at the
age of 25. It - and Keats - deserved more respect than Bristol City Council was showing them.
So we complained. And asked other people to complain. Which they did in their hun- well, a lot of people did, from even as far away as America. And the Bristol Post got involved. And the local councillors were alerted. And although we didn't get our promised response within the 10 day deadline, yesterday I had a message from a friend who lives on the same street to say this had happened.
And shortly afterwards, this happened.
And all we have to do now is get up a petition to get remove her and her dog.
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