During the recent battlefields tour The World’s Worst Wound, the final tour in a series designed to commemorate the centenary of the First World War and the Armistice which ended it, John Lazarus read Isaac Rosenberg‘s poem Break of Day In the Trenches. Crosses were placed at the grave after the reading. As you will see, the weather would perhaps have been more suited to a reading of World War II poet Alun Lewis’s poem, All Day It Has Rained, but a good video recording of Rosenberg’s poem was made by tour participant Robin Allison-Smith. Robin has kindly suggested that it be made available here for users of this website to view or download, but for non-commercial use only, following the usual ‘Creative Commons’ rules. These can be found on the Internet.
The video of John Lazarus reading Rosenberg’s Break of Day In the Trenches can be found on Vimeo.com, here: https://vimeo.com/302143200[.]
The group later retired to their nearby coach for a reading by poet Michael Longley of Isaac Rosenberg’s poem, Dead Man’s Dump. This was also recorded on film by Robin Allison-Smith and it is hoped to make it available here too — also for non-commercial use only — once the necessary copyright permissions have been obtained.
