What Is A Poet? — According To John Keats

A Poet is a complete Human!

John Keats, portrait by Joseph Severn, National Portrait Gallery, London.

Here’s John Keats in his poem ‘Where’s the Poet? Show him, show him’ writing about poets:

Here’s how I think he was trying to describe a poet:

A poet is a human being who holds the essence of every other type of human being. A poet is like a king as well as like a beggar. That is, a poet has the character of both the rich and the poor. A poet is like every type of human existing in a spectrum between an ape and Plato. That is, a poet has the traits of both: the most unintellectual and the most intellectual. Of both cognitively simple and sophisticated. A poet is a human who senses the instinct of both the smallest and largest of birds. A poet is someone who has heard a lion’s roar and can understand what that expresses. In a poet, a tiger’s yell is interpreted naturally.

A poet therefore is a human who has/needs-to-have all human characteristics possible, and at the same time a poet has/needs-to-have a subtle and in-depth understanding of everything possible.

In other words, a poet is a type of person we need a lot of today.