Dannie Abse
Dannie Abse FRSL | |
---|---|
Born | Cardiff, Wales | 22 September 1923
Died | 28 September 2014 | (aged 91)
Nationality | Welsh |
Education |
|
Genre | Poetry |
Notable awards |
|
Spouse | Joan Abse |
Daniel Abse
Early years
Abse was born in
Abse was a passionate supporter of
Career as poet
Although best known as a poet, Abse worked in the medical field, and was a physician in a
His first volume of poetry, After Every Green Thing, was published in 1949.
Abse lived for several decades in the north-west area of London, mainly near
In 2005, his wife Joan was killed in a car accident, while Abse suffered a broken rib. His poetry collection, Running Late, was published in 2006, and The Presence, a memoir of the year after his wife died, was published in 2007; it won the 2008 Wales Book of the Year award.[3] The book was later dramatised for BBC Radio 4. He was awarded the Roland Mathias prize for Running Late.[5]
In 2009, Abse brought out a volume of collected poetry. In the same year, he received the
Abse died on 28 September 2014, six days after his 91st birthday.[1]
Books
- After Every Green Thing, Hutchinson, 1948
- Walking Under Water, Hutchinson, 1952
- Fire in Heaven, Hutchinson, 1956
- Mavericks: An Anthology, ed. with Howard Sergeant, Editions Poetry and Poverty, 1957
- Tenants of the House: Poems 1951–1956, Hutchinson, 1957
- Poems, Golders Green, Hutchinson, 1962
- Poems! Dannie Abse: A Selection, Vista/Dufour, 1963
- Modern European Verse, ed., Vista, 1964
- Medicine on Trial, Aldus, 1967
- Three Questor Plays, Scorpion, 1967
- A Small Desperation, Hutchinson, 1968
- Demo Sceptre, 1969
- Selected Poems, Hutchinson, 1970
- Modern Poets in Focus 1, ed., Corgi, 1971
- Modern Poets in Focus 3, ed., Corgi, 1971
- Thirteen Poets, ed., Poetry Book Society, 1972
- Funland and Other Poems, Hutchinson, 1973
- Modern Poets in Focus 5, ed., Corgi, 1973
- The Dogs of Pavlov, Vallentine, Mitchell, 1973
- A Poet in the Family, Hutchinson, 1974
- Penguin Modern Poets 26, with Dannie Abse, D. J. Enright and Michael Longley, Penguin, 1975
- Collected Poems 1948–1976, Hutchinson, 1977
- More Words, BBC, 1977
- My Medical School, Robson, 1978
- Pythagoras, Hutchinson, 1979
- Way Out in the Centre, Hutchinson, 1981
- A Strong Dose of Myself, Hutchinson, 1983
- One-legged on ice: poems, University of Georgia Press, 1983
- Doctors and Patients ed., Oxford University Press, 1984
- Ask the Bloody Horse, Hutchinson, 1986
- Journals From the Ant Heap, Hutchinson, 1986
- Voices in the Gallery: Poems and Pictures, ed. with Joan Abse, Tate Gallery, 1986
- The Music Lover's Literary Companion, ed. with Joan Abse, Robson, 1988
- The Hutchinson Book of Post-War British Poetry, ed., Hutchinson, 1989
- White Coat, Purple Coat: Collected Poems 1948–1988, Hutchinson, 1989
- People, contributor, National Language Unit of Wales, 1990
- Remembrance of Crimes Past: Poems 1986–1989, Hutchinson, 1990
- The View from Row G: Three Plays, Seren, 1990
- Intermittent Journals, Seren, 1994
- On the Evening Road, Hutchinson, 1994
- Selected Poems, Penguin, 1994
- The Gregory Anthology 1991–1993, ed. with A. Stevenson, Sinclair-Stevenson, 1994
- Twentieth-Century Anglo-Welsh Poetry, ed., Seren, 1997
- Welsh Retrospective, Seren, 1997
- Arcadia, One Mile, Hutchinson, 1998
- Be seated, thou: poems 1989–1998, Sheep Meadow Press, 1999
- Encounters Hearing Eye, 2001
- Goodbye, Twentieth Century: An Autobiography, Pimlico, 2001
- New and Collected Poems, Hutchinson, 2002
- The Two Roads Taken: A Prose Miscellany, Enitharmon Press, 2003
- Yellow Bird, Sheep Meadow Press, 2004
- Running Late, Hutchinson, 2006
- 100 Great Poems of Love and Lust: Homage to Eros, compiler/ed., Robson, 2007
- The Presence, Hutchinson, 2007
- New Selected Poems 1949–2009: Anniversary Collection, Hutchinson, 2009 (shortlisted for Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry)
- Speak, Old Parrot, Hutchinson, 2013
- Ask the Moon: New and collected poems 1948–2014, Hutchinson, 2014
Fiction
- Ash on a Young Man's Sleeve, Hutchinson, 1954
- Some Corner of an English Field, Hutchinson, 1956
- O Jones, O Jones, Hutchinson, 1970
- There Was A Young Man From Cardiff, Hutchinson, 1991
- The Strange Case of Dr Simmonds & Dr Glas, Robson, 2002
Plays
- Fire in Heaven (produced London, 1948), retitled Is the House Shut (1964) and In the Cage (1967)
- Hands Around the Wall (produced London, 1950)
- House of Cowards (produced London, 1960)
- The Eccentric (produced London, 1961)
- Gone (produced London, 1962)
- The Joker (produced, London, 1962), retitled The Courting of Essie Glass (1981)
- The Dogs of Pavlov (produced London, 1969)
- Funland (produced London, 1975)
- Pythagoras (produced Birmingham, 1976), retitled Pythagoras (Smith)[7]
Published plays
- — (1967). Three Questor Plays. Lowestoft Suffolk: Scorpion Press. ISBN 9780851030104. – includes House of Cowards, Gone and In the Cage[8]
- — (1990). The view from Row G: three plays. Bridgend: Seren. ISBN 1854110225. – includes House of Cowards, The Dogs of Pavlov and Pythagoras (Smith)[9]
Radio plays
- Conform or Die (1957)
- No Telegrams, No Thunder (1962)
- You Can't Say Hello to Anybody (1964)
- A Small Explosion (1964)
- The Courting of Elsie Glass (1975)
References
- ^ a b c "Dannie Abse – obituary". The Telegraph. 28 September 2014. Retrieved 21 January 2016.
- ^ Goldbeck-Wood, Sandy (13 December 2014). "Dannie Abse – Last act in the theatre of disease" (PDF). British Medical Journal: 25.
- ^ a b Dannie Abse Archived 6 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ The Oxford Companion to English Literature, 6th edition, edited by Margaret Drabble (Oxford, UK: OUP, 2000), p. 2.
- ^ "Dannie Abse". Poetry Foundation. Retrieved 6 August 2012.
- ^ "No. 60009". The London Gazette (Supplement). 31 December 2011. p. 6.
- ISBN 978-1-135-45607-8.
- ISBN 978-1-4384-1994-7.
- ^ "The View from Row G". Seren Books. Retrieved 22 April 2020.
- ISBN 1558623493.
Further reading
- ISBN 9780708308967.
External links
- "Dannie Abse". Official website. Archived from the original on 10 August 2019.
- Dr Dannie Abse at British Council: Literature
- Goldbeck-Wood, Sandy (13 December 2014). "Dannie Abse – Last act in the theatre of disease" (PDF). British Medical Journal: 25.
- Annotations at NYU Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database of several Abse works, with links to texts and audio of the poet reading poems " Carnal Knowledge", "Case History", "The Origin of Music", "Pathology of Colours", "The Stethoscope".
- "Dannie Abse", Fellows Remembered, The Royal Society of Literature
- Dannie Abse Papers at the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library