The Next Chapter·Dog-Eared Reads

Why Atticus the poet loves F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

The popular and anonymous poet shares the book he loves to re-read.
Atticus is an anonymous B.C.-based poet. (Bryan Adam Castillo Photography/Penguin)

Atticus is an anonymous poet from British Columbia's west coast, known online as @atticuspoetry. His handwritten and typewriter-printed poems are popular on Instagram and he's collected these poems in the books Love Her Wild and The Dark Between Stars

Atticus loves to re-read The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

"One of my favourite books is The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I find myself always going back to this book throughout my life. I love the cadence of the way he writes. It's so snappy. It just flows and you're in it — you're inside it. He writes almost like poetry. 

"For those reasons I've always come back to that story, which is interesting because the first time I read it I was forced to read in high school and I didn't appreciate it. It wasn't until years later that I picked it up again and read it and could really appreciate the story and the kind of deeper meanings behind it."

Atticus's comments have been edited for length and clarity.