Random Keats Sightings

[BrokenLyre]

Awesome. I would love to have taken that class!
Good for him. I wouldn't cut class either.

[BrokenLyre]

Ok - this is serious...

In 2008, I was driving through Erie, Pennsylvania (for those who don't know, Erie is a relatively small city on Lake Erie southwest of New York State, about 90 miles south of Buffalo, NY).

Anyway, I was driving down the main street (Route 19) when I saw a side road called "Keats Ave."
But when I was in the area some time ago, I noticed that the road sign was gone and they renamed it something else!!

C'mon! Our poet is still getting dissed today!

Probably John Gibson Lockhart's descendant is on the council board for street names!

But does this still count as a "Random Keats Sighting"?

[Raphael]

Yes, I'll allow you that one Broken Lyre. Whoever re named that needs a kick up the ****.
What is it renamed to?

[Ennis]

Probably "Byron Boulevard", or as Brokenlyre suggests, "Lockhart Lane" ("Lockhart Alley" would be more like it -- or maybe "Lockhart's Dead-End" . . .).

[Raphael]

Or Abbey Way.

[BrokenLyre]

The next time I am in the area, I will check the road name. Serious. I would like to know why they changed it. arrgg...

[Cybele]

Oh my gosh, Keatsian friends! I'm originally from Erie.
Alas, I never came across that street. It would be very cool to re-discover it and take a picture of it to post here.

B. L., did you say it intersected State Street? (That's the main street running North/South. -- I grew up about 3 miles from that street.)

[Cybele]

Yipee! Keats Avenue still exists! It's off Peach Street (another of the main streets.) And even closer to where I grew up (about 5 blocks away) -- in the same zip (postal) code, and everything.

http://www.realtor.com/property-search/ ... /Keats-Ave

I will take a photo the next time I'm in Erie visiting family.

[BrokenLyre]

Wow - Thanks Cybele! When I last visited, the street sign was down and I saw another sign up instead. If you do visit Erie, please drop by where Cherry Street crosses Peach Street (Rt. 19). Just a very short distance north of Cherry Street, is where Keats Street crosses Peach Street (Rt. 19).

Maybe they put the Keats sign back. I don't know. I am certain that it wasn't Keats when I was there. Let us know Cybele.

Thanks!

[Cybele]

I grew up one block west of Cherry Street, and altho' I don't remember a street by that name, I'm quite familiar with that area.

I plan to be in Erie next month (or May at the latest), so I'll make sure to search for Keats Avenue. Thanks for posting this -- the obsessive in me is looking forward to the quest.

[BrokenLyre]

Please check the actual road sign,when you visit Erie. I know that Google videos might be dated.

[Ennis]

Hello, everyone!

Last night, I was watching an old British black-and-white film on Turner Classic Movies -- I believe the title was either The Searchers or The Seekers (I believe the former title is correct, although I wouldn't swear on it!). Anyway, the story seemed to revolve around a British schoolgirl and her relationship with her mother. I was busy grading papers and wasn't really paying any attention to it until I heard ". . . when sick for home, she stood in tears amid the alien corn." I, needless to say, perked up on that and started to watch the film at that point. The scene was a classroom, and the teacher was doing a most awful reading of "Ode To a Nightingale"! The protagonist (the afore-mentioned schoolgirl) was NOT paying any attention to the reading and was in the process of distracting her classmates with paper airplanes until the teacher finished reading the poem, and "busted" her! I realize that teacher was butchering Keats's poem with her inept recitation (B. Whishaw she wasn't, that's for sure!!), but that "brazen hussy" should not have behaving as she was!!

[Raphael]

Did John get mentioned as the author of the poem?

[Ennis]

Did John get mentioned as the author of the poem?

I'm pretty sure he wasn't, because I know I would have really perked up at His Name! It seems as though there was a scene change from something to the schoolroom "Nightingale" incident. And when the scene did change, the teacher was almost through with the ode; the scene picked her up, I'm pretty sure, at the "Thou wast not born for death, Immortal bird" stanza, so she only read (not recited!) the last two stanzas.
Her reading was terrible.

[Raphael]

Well noone can top Ben Whishaw.