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Dannie Abse | |||
Dannie Abse's latest book: Two For Joy - Scenes from Married Life
Dannie and Joan Abse had been married for more than fifty years when she was killed in a car crash in 2005. After her death he wrote his extraordinary memoir of loss, The Presence, which was the Wales Book of the Year in 2008. In contrast, much of this new collection is a delightful celebration. In it Dannie Abse returns to their marriage through all its seasons, and celebrates love in verse which is funny, tender and playful as well as serious and passionate. Almost half the poems appear in this form for the first time. 'One for sorrow, two for joy' is the old country saw about the magpie. These poems reflect its truth, and in the process transfigure ordinary life and love into something rich and strange. Available in paperback from February 2010 from publishers Random House. Or see links to Amazon in right column. " ..crisp,
jaunty, nimble and witty, Abse's fleet-footed verse draws on every
dimension of a rich joint life" "What is beautiful about this new collection of poetry is the light
it sheds on what it is to grieve after being happy." Dannie Abse's: New Selected Poems The year 2009 marks the 60th anniversary of the publication of Dannie Abse’s first poetry collection, After Every Green Thing, and since that time he has published an astonishing range of books, including poetry, fiction, criticism and autobiography. He remains a writer of great distinction who is at the height of his powers – his memoir, The Presence, won the Wales Book of the Year in 2008. But it is as a poet that Dannie Abse is best known, and to mark this extraordinary milestone he has compiled a new and definitive volume of selected poems which includes new work combining both passion and maturity. " His poetry has lost nothing of its unnerving power...A magician of
ordinary speech...... His unique achievement has been to fashion a genuinely
lyric art out of a relaxed, colloquial, deceptively desultory style of
writing. It remains a potentially devastating combination... As he adventures
ever further into his 80s, Dannie Abse is a continuing wonder" See and hear Dannie Abse reading on the Poetry Channel Dannie Abse's The Presence Some months after Dannie Abse's wife Joan died in a car accident in June 2005, he began to write a diary which is both a record of present grief and a portrait of a marriage which lasted more than fifty years. This book is a memoir from one of Britain's most distinguished poets. It deals with loss, grief and love. It is an extraordinary document, painful but celebratory; funny as well as sad, bursting with joy as well as sorrow and full of a deep understanding of what it means to be human. The Presence is the winner of the 2008 Wales Book of the Year. Watch Dannie Abse talking about and reading from The Presence in a short film from the BBC Wales Book of the Year website here. See Dannie Abse reading for Oxfam below:
The critics: “A remarkable
and candid document… a celebration of all things that he values
in life-art, music, poetry, friendship, humour and, above all, the
love he found with his wife.” “The Presence
is a fragment of autobiography written from the most private part of a
poet’s heart, with a pen dipped in blood and tears."
See also features in The Jewish Chronicle and The Western Mail. Available in paperback from October 2nd 2008 from publishers Random House. Or see links to Amazon in right column.
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