Sunday 25 November 2007

Good Morning World!

The Poet-in-Residence is finally in residence. The date today is Sunday 25th November 2007. Is this auspicious I ask you? And I ask myself too. He checks. For the P-i-R is indeed an 'he'. The answer as always is 'Yes' and 'No'. Hymn writer Isaac Watts died on this day in 1748.
Painter & poet Isaac Rosenberg born in Bristol, son of poor Eastern European Jewish immigrants, this day in 1890. In the war he served with the Bantams; a regiment of undersized soldiers. Unfortunately he was killed on April Fool's Day 1918 (I kid you not!). "Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew..." comes from his 'Break of Day in the Trenches'.

2 comments:

  1. Bantams, I should have explained, are small pugnacious domestic fowl. The word Bantam is Javanese. A ruined town in the north-west of Java, Bantam was the site of the first Dutch settlement in that country.
    A bantamweight is a boxer or wrestler of no more than 118 pounds (8 stone 6 lbs) bodyweight.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Welcome to blogland. You'll probably find me popping up in your comments as either Hyde DP or Ackworth born - they are both me!

    ReplyDelete

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.