Words out of War – poetry reading
Wednesday 11th June 2014 6pm – 7:30pm, Free Event at Foyles bookshop, Cabot Circus
Poetry by Isaac Rosenberg, and other modern Bristol poets. This event, organised by Bristol Quakers, introduces the writing of Isaac Rosenberg, Bristol’s war poet. Isaac Rosenberg was born in Redcliffe, Bristol in 1890 into a working-class, Jewish family. He hated the idea of killing, but when he heard that his mother would be able to claim a separation allowance he enlisted, joining the 12th Suffolk Regiment, a Bantam Battalion for men less than 5’ 3’’ in height.
During his 21 months in the trenches he wrote some remarkable and powerful poetry. In ‘The Great War and Modern Memory’, Paul Fussell’s landmark study of the literature of the First World War, Fussell identifies Rosenberg’s “Break of Day in the Trenches” as “the greatest poem of the war.”
Issac Rosenberg was killed near Arras, France, on 1 April 1918, aged 27. He was among 16 Great War poets commemorated on a slate stone unveiled in Westminster Abbey’s Poet’s Corner in 1985.
The event is free, and all are welcome. No booking required. E-mail eddy@learnersfirst.co.uk if you would like any further information