Creator Bio
Isaac Rosenberg
1890–1918
Born in Bristol, United Kingdom, Isaac Rosenberg ended his formal education at age fourteen, after which he took an apprenticeship with an engraver. Awarded a scholarship to attend the Slade Art School, Rosenberg studied painting, developing an aesthetic viewpoint he would later refine in his poetry. Deployed to the trenches of World War I in August 1916, Rosenberg became well known for his war poetry, often drawing on biblical metaphors and Jewish themes to craft his poetic voice. Rosenberg was killed in action in France.
Entries in the Posen Library by This Creator
Primary Source
God
In his malodorous brain what slugs and mire,
Lanthorned in his oblique eyes, guttering burned!
His body lodged a rat where men nursed souls.
The world flashed grape-green eyes of a foiled cat
To him…
Primary Source
The Jew
Moses, from whose loins I sprung,
Lit by a lamp in his blood
Ten immutable rules, a moon
For mutable lampless men.
The blonde, the bronze, the ruddy,
With the same heaving blood,
Keep tide to the…