Ruth Rosen was introduced as one of the foremost performers of poetry in the UK, and Keats's Last Summer in the Burgage Hall last Sunday did not disappoint.

Somehow, she breathed fresh life into the poems and letters of a young man who died 182 years ago and has since become the familiar symbol of the suffering Romantic artist.

I am a huge fan of Keats, but until I heard this performance I had not comprehended the youthful enthusiasm of his words, in prose and poetry.

Ruth Rosen fairly bubbled over, and we could almost see the mobile, excited face of the young poet, looking forward to a bright future that, in fact, was never to be his.

By hearing the date on each letter, we moved towards the inevitable. But the poetry too was unstoppable.

Keats was number three in a recent internet popularity poll of English language poets, behind Shakespeare and Donne.

His reputation rests on just a handful of great poems and we heard most of them, as if for the first time.

Notable recitals included Ode to a Nightingale, Ode to a Grecian Urn, the love sonnet to Fanny Brawne, Bright Star, the celebrated To Autumn and the ballad La Belle Dame Sans Merci.

Obscure in his own lifetime, when he was not being attacked by critics, Keats is now regarded as perhaps one of the finest letter writers in the language.

Just before his untimely death from tuberculosis, aged just 25, Keats wrote, "I think I shall be with the English poets, after my death."

A modern audience could only agree.

Gary Bills-Geddes