A Winter Visit - Dannie Abse

From this poem the audience is able to see that Abse is talking about his mother and how age has affected her. From within this poem we get key words and description which enable us to portray what Abse is trying to say to the audience. From within the first stanza we see the line, "too cold, the usual peacocks do not screech and neighbouring lights come on before its dark." suggests to us how lifeless and cruel the local park appears to Abse due to the sudden change to the season. Winter is portrayed as to being cold and dark and gloomy and is shown with the description Abse has given to us with the detail of the peacocks. There is also the notion that there is little colour within this scene for winter gives just one simple colour whilst other seasons provide a wide range of colours towards the audience.
Throughout this poem we get the sense of colours becoming faded throughout due to various words such as "spring forth all the colours". This portrays a sense of welcoming and warmth that is provided from the peacocks tail once its opened but is rarely seen within the winter days due to the cold causing the colours to become lost and withered. The sense of of loss is also shown with how his mother is now "so aged and so frail" implying to us that her time of being bright and colourful within her life has come to an end. She is now withering like a flower and closing up.
From within another stanza we also see the phrase "I inhabit a white coat not a black" which informs to us that he has to act professional due to his white coat but its coming close to him having to wear the black coat for his mother is slowly dying due to her age.
From within this poem we see the connections towards Abse and Larkin through various poems. Both poets show the themes of loss, aging and time, death and love. From these themes we are able to see that some key poems that would link into A Winter Visit would be Reference Back, Love Songs in Age and Send No Money. From these poems we are able to see the links between the poems such as Reference Back to be on the bond between a parent and child and the love they share for each other. There is also the sense of loss within that poem for Larkin suggests the seperation between these two people whilst Abse is portraying the slow decay of this women which is resulting in a far greater loss.
There is also the link to the poem Love Songs in Age for it is showing the reader how time passes by without our acknowledgement. This is shown in Larkins poem due to the memories that are brought from these music sheets which show us how easily we are able to forget within time. Abse also portrays this due to the fact of how time has rapidly gone by since his mother is now old and frail and has little time left to live. Abse also portrays this to the notion of all the colours being faded once winter has come to show this sense of how time has taken over.
Finally the poem of Send No Money links into Abse work due to the notion of time once more. When Larkin wrote this he was at the age of forty and we see how quick half his life has gone by him so easily throughout this poem.
There is still that notion of each poet being different on connecting to the audience. Larkin still appears to be dull and cold towards the readers whilst Abse remains as the warming and personal poet throughout these poems so far.