Exploring Dannie Abse

From exploring the poet Dannie Abse I have discovered many key points that I was unaware of. One was that Abse was of a Jewish family where many of his poems were placed on the traditions they believed in. Another would be that he studied medicine at different universities and schools instead of poetry. Due to his studies within the field of medicine Abse worked in a specialist in a chest clinic for more than thirty years. But he was famous for his poetry of which he had won many awards for over the years. Another key point I discovered about Dannie Abse was he also worked for a London newspaper known as the Hampstead and Highgate Express where he wrote columns that were published into book form.
Althrough Dannie Abse was best known for his poetry we see that his first interest of work was within the line of medicine but change towards journalism through the years.
In 2005 Abse lost his wife within a car accident which left him with only a broken rib. This was where many of his key themes began to come in after the death of his wife. "Running Late" was a collection he wrote in 2006 and "The Presence" which was a memoir to a year after his wifes passing in 2007. This book had won the wales book of the year award the next year and was later dramatised on BBC Radio 4.
The key themes we see come out through the collection, "Speak, Old Parrot" was a mix from love, loss, medicine, nature of creativity, jewish folk traditions and passing of time. From this we see that there are some links between Abse and Larkin for they both speak of time as well as the creation that we live in. They are both looking at the bigger picture when the reader looks into their words in further depth.
Abse published more then twenty volumes of poetry and around two plays and novels throughout his life.