Finding Words in Whitechapel

 The becoming of a poet...

Whitechapel Library

                       
July, 1903
‘Sweat dripping heat. Lining up, Isaac Rosenberg peered from behind Jacob Rosen’s wide back and silently urged Mr.Usherwood to ring the school bell.’ The Headmaster does nothing. He keeps you waiting, lets you worry about what’s happening at home. Why has your younger brother’s straw pallet been moved to mama and papa’s room?  It’s not right.

School is out, and ‘Isaac flies swift as a Mohican Indian’s arrow’ to Whitechapel Road, where trams clang up and down. Around him peddlers sing their wares, ‘Alte zacha’, ‘Shmaltz herring’, ‘Pretzels, two for ha’penny.’ Although his mouth is watering, ‘his pockets are empty.’ 

Crossing the street, Isaac wonders why there is no love at home, no money, even though mama and his sister Minnie sew dresses day and night? Papa? He reads Tolstoy and is a peddler selling buttons ribbons. But Brother David isn’t sick, yet he’s being moved! 

The door to the flat is open; mama and Minnie are sewing. Papa is not out selling, but reading. Mama asks,’ How was school?’ 

Isaac can’t stop himself from reciting the poem To Autumn. Seasons of mists and mellow fruitfulness. Close bosom-friend of the maturing son. He must talk about the words, ‘how the autumn produce is tied to the helpful sun.’ ‘Your eyes and nose know because he speaks of the roots of things…See we are sharing pictures and thoughts with John Keats.’

‘You’re a good boy,’ says his mother.

 But why is David being moved?

Then, his mother folds the finished blue silk skirt into a piece of tissue paper. ‘Isaac, you won’t like it, my son, but it has to be...We are having a lodger, Mr. Abou Saleem is coming. He arrived from Kashmir… His cousin sells fruit...has eight children…He pays to sleep on the floor. There is more money.’ 

‘Trapped.’

AN E-VERSION OF THE BOOK WILL BE AVAILABLE ON KINDLE AS OF 13TH AUGUST 2013