Dannie Abse (1923–2014)
Author of Ash on a Young Man's Sleeve
About the Author
Dannie Abse was born in Cardiff, Wales on September 22, 1923. He trained as a doctor at King's College London and Westminster Hospital, where he qualified in 1950. In 1951, he was called up for national service as a medical officer in the RAF. In 1954, he went to the Middlesex Hospital, where he show more stayed for the rest of his medical career, as specialist in charge of the chest clinic at the Central Medical Establishment. His first collection of poetry, After Every Green Thing, was published in 1948 and his first autobiographical novel, Ash on a Young Man's Sleeve, was published in 1954. His other collections of poetry include A Small Desperation; Funland; White Coat, Purple Coat: Collected Poems, 1948-88; Two for Joy: Scenes from Married Life; Speak, Old Parrot; and Ask the Moon. He won the Roland Mathais Prize in 2007 for Running Late and the Wales Book of the Year award in 2008 for The Presence. His other novels include Some Corner of an English Field; O. Jones, O. Jones; There Was a Young Man from Cardiff; and The Strange Case of Dr. Simmonds and Dr. Glas. He wrote two books of memoirs, A Poet in the Family and Goodbye, Twentieth Century. He also wrote a number of plays. In the early 1950s, he edited a magazine entitled Poetry and Poverty and compiled a variety of anthologies including Wales in Verse and the Hutchinson Book of Post-War British Poets. In 2012, he accepted his CBE for services to poetry and literature. He died on September 28, 2014 at the age of 91. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: Dannie Abse Photo: © Elsa Corbluth
Series
Works by Dannie Abse
Associated Works
Answering Back: Living Poets Reply to the Poetry of the Past (2007) — Contributor — 119 copies, 1 review
Editor's Choice II: Fiction, Poetry & Art from the U.S. Small Press, 1978 to 1983 (Contemporary Anthology Series) (1987) — Contributor — 6 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Abse, Daniel
- Birthdate
- 1923-09-22
- Date of death
- 2014-09-28
- Gender
- male
- Education
- University of Wales College of Medicine
Westminster Hospital Medical School
King's College, London - Occupations
- physician
poet
novelist
autobiographer - Awards and honors
- Cholmondeley Award (1985)
Order of the British Empire (Commander ∙ 2012)
Royal Society of Literature (fellow)
Welsh Academy of Letters (fellow) - Relationships
- Abse, Leo (brother)
Tobias, Lily (aunt)
Abse, Joan (wife)
Abse, Wilfred (brother) - Nationality
- Wales
UK - Birthplace
- Cardiff, Wales, UK
- Places of residence
- Cardiff, South Wales, UK
Hampstead, London, England, UK - Place of death
- Llundain, Lloegr
- Associated Place (for map)
- UK
Members
Reviews
The title of course is a nod to T S Eliot's "Ash on an old man's sleeve" from "Little Gidding"; thus Abse claims his place among the poets. This lovely, funny lyrical memoir doesn't include his mother's great faux pas (though I'd remembered it as being here):
She went into a bookshop in Cardiff to check on how well her son's first published volume of poems was selling. The manager told her not as well as Dylan Thomas's, whose first volume of collected poems had also just come out.“Well,” show more she said “Dannie Abse is the Welsh Dylan Thomas!”
Brilliant. show less
She went into a bookshop in Cardiff to check on how well her son's first published volume of poems was selling. The manager told her not as well as Dylan Thomas's, whose first volume of collected poems had also just come out.“Well,” show more she said “Dannie Abse is the Welsh Dylan Thomas!”
Brilliant. show less
On 13th June 2005, Joan Abse, a writer and art historian and the wife of the poet Dannie Abse, was killed in a traffic accident at the age of seventy-eight. Following her death, for which the driver who drove into the back of their car at seventy miles an hour would later be convicted of dangerous driving, her husband of over fifty years kept a diary for therapeutic purposes and [The Presence] is the result. The book is part reflection on the reality of grief in the year following her death show more and part reminiscence on his married life and further back to his young childhood, interspersed with selections of poems both his own and those of other poets.
I had mixed feelings about this book, and it engendered feelings both of great familiarity and great unfamiliarity. Familiarity because Dannie Abse's retreat from London over many years was in the village of Ogmore-by-Sea, a settlement that I looked out on every day from my bedroom window as a child, and many of the Welsh locations that he mentions are familiar to me. Unfamiliarity because many if not most of the poets who form the background to the lives of this literary family are completely unknown to me, which somewhat detracted from my enjoyment of the book. So while this wasn't quite the book for me I'm inclined to try some of his other work in particular [Ash on a Young Man's Sleeve].
This is a section from the book which will probably appeal to LT readers, actually narrated by his older brother Leo, as he recalls how he (then aged 6 1/2) debated with their oldest brother Wilfred (age 8) what to buy as a present for the newly born brother Dannie:
I had mixed feelings about this book, and it engendered feelings both of great familiarity and great unfamiliarity. Familiarity because Dannie Abse's retreat from London over many years was in the village of Ogmore-by-Sea, a settlement that I looked out on every day from my bedroom window as a child, and many of the Welsh locations that he mentions are familiar to me. Unfamiliarity because many if not most of the poets who form the background to the lives of this literary family are completely unknown to me, which somewhat detracted from my enjoyment of the book. So while this wasn't quite the book for me I'm inclined to try some of his other work in particular [Ash on a Young Man's Sleeve].
This is a section from the book which will probably appeal to LT readers, actually narrated by his older brother Leo, as he recalls how he (then aged 6 1/2) debated with their oldest brother Wilfred (age 8) what to buy as a present for the newly born brother Dannie:
What the new brother must have was reading material, for in Wales, unlike England, the term intellectual is not perjorative and we were brought up too, in a Jewish ethos which taught us that in the beginning was the Word. But Wilfred and I fell out as to what reading material was suitable.show less
I wanted to take him, for instruction on the wider world, 'The Children's Newspaper' an Arthur Mee publication of which, as became a future politician, I was an avid reader; but Wilfred thought a coloured comic was more suitable ... In the end with our pocket money we bought both. When my turn came to enter my brother's bedroom and I saw the sleeping babe I became afflicted with doubt about his capacity to appreciate my gift; but my mother reassured me and told me Dannie would enjoy the present when he was awake ...
By their very nature anthologies can be inconsistent. This book had its better moments but was on the whole disappointing as I found some of Abse's essays frankly boring. His more autobiographical stuff was though very good and I'd have liked to read more of that. I still plan on reading "Ash On A Young Man's Sleeve" in the near future. My favourite essay in this collection was his recollection of life as a suffering Cardiff City FC fan.
Delightful (and funny) autobigraphy of doctor poet. Medical student during the war, establishing himself afterwards as a literary figure. Trying to find happiness now, despite the tragic loss of his loved wife in a car crash.
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Statistics
- Works
- 86
- Also by
- 6
- Members
- 621
- Popularity
- #40,535
- Rating
- 3.5
- Reviews
- 16
- ISBNs
- 113
- Languages
- 1