Three cheers for Judith Chernaik for getting a poem by Rosenberg onto the underground (JC 19th September). It was certainly appropriate of her to point out that he suffered in the infantry not only because life in the trenches was awful but also because "his soul was full of literature but he was surrounded by people who were not interested in that."

But the point about the great Great War poets is that their poetry speaks on behalf of Everyman, the inarticulate, the semi-literate, the ignorant, those who have no interest in literature. Surely that's what poetry's 'for'. Rosenberg, like Wilfred Owen, is clearly a square peg in a round hole for the reasons that Chernaik evinces but he's probably a better poet because of that.

One quibble with the choice of poem: 'On Receiving News of the War' lacks the power that, say, 'Break of Day in the Trenches' clearly possesses. If I wanted a commuter who had never heard of Rosenberg to 'get' one of his poems I would have chosen the latter.