A Joy Forever

In 2013, over a drink, poets Julia Bird and Mike Sims challenged each other to learn John Keats’ ‘Ode to a Nightingale’ by heart, a conversation that was to be the catalyst to A Joy Forever – a series of events at Keats House, London, Keats-Shelley House, Rome, and UK literary festivals, and now a new book based on
the life and writing of Keats, published by Paekakariki Press.

A Joy Forever – A Walk Out with John Keats by Julia Bird & Mike Sims is a
compendium of what their first challenge to one another inspired: readings of Keats’ poems and letters with entertainments, games and food, and a playful, social exploration of Keats’ life and writings.

Loosely arranged by theme – letter-writing, fame, play, water, nightingales and walking – the book comprises a little hero worship, some Keatsian enthusiasms and diversions (games, recipes, pilgrimages), a favourite Keats poem or letter or
two, and new poems by Bird and Sims. The book fuses serious attention to Keats’
writing and history with a more light-hearted approach, and it will appeal
to Keats readers, enthusiasts and fellow-travellers everywhere.