Dannie Abse

Daniel Abse CBE FRSL (22 September 1923 – 28 September 2014) was a Welsh poet and physician. His poetry won him many awards. As a medic, he worked in a chest clinic for over 30 years.

Early years Abse was born in Cardiff, Wales, as the younger brother of the politician and reformer Leo Abse and the eminent psychoanalyst Wilfred Abse. Unusually for a middle-class Jewish boy, Dannie Abse attended St Illtyd's College, a working-class Catholic school in Splott. Abse studied medicine, first at the University of Wales College of Medicine and then at Westminster Hospital Medical School and King's College London. He received numerous literary awards and fellowships for his writing. In 1989, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Wales.

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 Hampstead, where he had considerable ties. For several years he wrote a column for the local Hampstead and Highgate Express. These articles subsequently appeared in book form.

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. The book was later dramatised for BBC Radio 4. He was awarded the Roland Mathias prize for Running Late.

In 2009, Abse brought out a volume of collected poetry. In the same year, he received the Wilfred Owen Poetry Award. Abse was a judge for the inaugural 2010 Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine. Abse was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2012 New Year Honours for services to poetry and literature.

Abse died at his home in London on 28 September 2014, six days after his 91st birthday.

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)

Published plays – includes House of Cowards, Gone and In the Cage – includes House of Cowards, The Dogs of Pavlov and Pythagoras (Smith)

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)