Book description
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. Dannie Abse was
for many years a chest specialist in a London teaching hospital. A poet,
reviewer and playwright, he has written and edited more than sixteen
books of poetry, as well as books about medicine and also fiction. He is
the author of Ash on a Young Man's Sleeve
and several autobiographical volumes, the most recent of which,
Goodbye, Twentieth Century
, was published by Pimlico in 2001 to critical acclaim. His most recent
novel, The Strange Case of Dr Simmonds & Dr Glas
, was published in 2002 and long-listed for the Booker Prize. In 2003
his New and Collected Poems
received the Special Commendation of the Poetry Book Society, and
Running Late
received the Roland Mathais Prize in 2007. Dannie Abse's most recent
book, The Presence
, won the Wales Book of the Year.
