ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on some critical moments in Isaac Rosenberg's life as presented in his letters written between 1911 and 1918. The existential significance of poetry and painting is explicit in Rosenberg's correspondence. Leftwich conveys Rosenberg's obsessiveness in the breathless repetition of 'poetry' and 'poets' that characterises 'his own way', his mental and physical forays into literature. Growing up in the crowded streets of Whitechapel was an unlikely provenance for an aspiring poet, and Rosenberg's letters tend to emphasise the deprivation of his upbringing. In 1914, after the end of his training at the Slade, Rosenberg fails to acquire commissions or earn money with his first publication of poems. Although Rosenberg's 'circumstances' would never match that of an English middle- or upper-class poet in terms of education, financial means and an easy access to influential social circles, critics and biographers alike agree that his experiences in such a diverse environment as the East End clearly informed and enriched his poetry.
