The Romantics

The Guardian today included the first in a series of booklets of Romantic poetry. This continues tomorrow in the Observer and next week in the Guardian. Today it's Keats then Byron, Burns, Blake, Coleridge, Shelley and Wordsworth. Each booklet has an introduction by a series of "esteemed guest editors" including Andrew Motion, Germaine Greer, Margaret Drabble and Philip Pullman.

Scottish poet Don Paterson will introduce the Burns booklet out on Burns' birthday, January 25th.

Today's Keats booklet is 26 pages, has a two and a half page introduction by Motion, a selection of poetry including the usual suspects, a letter of Keats to Fanny Brawne and a picture of a Keats manuscript.

The Guardian podcast has the former poet laureate and Keats biographer Andrew Motion talking about the Romantics, their importance. It also has a recording of actor Michael Sheen reading Keats' Ode on a Grecian Urn.

The podcast also has an interview with the winner of this year's TS Eliot prize, Phillip Gross, about the appeal of water to the poetic imagination, and the influences that shaped his collection The Water Table. The main newspaper has a review of the collection.