Altercation in Splott

Shows how immigration effects people

Sunil leaves - victim of racist attack

Darren Jones perpetrator - attacked Sunil yet denies being racist 

Put a brick through his window

Says be lucky - he's watching Sunil

Sunil doesn't fight back - he leaves

Can't tell the landlord as he's 'blue eyed' - white - racist himself 

There is nobody Sunil can go to

Last stanza shows that no matter what he does there will be woe for him

Could link to Abse's Red Balloon - shows abuse for being different

A Wall

The wall is man made, and at first seems to be out of place in the field as it is isolated, yet in the second stanza we see that the sheep and wildlife have become to depend on the wall 

Abse is hinting that the natural world and man made world can work together and support each other. Contrasts to Larkin's poem Here as he says the industrial world overpowers the natural one. 

The Boasts of Hywel ab Owain Gwynedd

Persona boasts about different women he has each day. 

Religious imagery - praise The Lord. Dry old hymns

Used fruit to describe her

He tries to impress her, it's just fun to her - 'she pigeon-coos when I thrust to woo her'

'O sweet riot of efflorescence' - oxymoron/paradox - he knows it's wrong yet he likes it 

'Let her name be secret for her husbands sake' - boasting that he's having an affair , suggests that whilst she's married, he's not. 

'Her' on only line suggests her importance to him and the he likes her. 

In the Theatre

True Incident

Sister of the patient saying —> soon you'll be back in the ward

Patient lying, saying he feels fine when he doesn't 

Patient was still awake whilst the surgeon was searching for brain tumour 

Every time he blinks it hurts —> 'blink again because of the fingers'

'Rash as blind man's' —> the surgeon can't see what he's touching in his brain/can't see the effect he's having on the man —> can't see that it's hurting him. 

'If items if horror can make a man laugh, then laugh at this' —> this is horror on another scale 

Irregular rhyme scheme could relate to the patients in and out of consciousness or the irregularity of the procedure

'Brain mashed' 'rash as blind man's' —> the mans brain is being played with. 

'Ticking its own wild time' —> frantic - so much pressure on his brain - it doesn't follow a normal time - running out of time?

'Probe's Braille path' —> blind people use Braille. Patients brain is like Braille to the surgeon, guiding him to tumour —> 'probe', 'prod' - not treating with respect

Surgeon has two more patients on the list, thinking about them - preoccupied, desperate to finish with this one, he's in a rush

'Voice so arctic and cry so odd' —> he doesn't recognise himself anymore, blood turning cold, drifting away. 

Cousin Sidney

An Old Commitment

Terrible Angels

The title seems to be a paradox in itself as you would not associate angels with being 'terrible'. 

In stanza one it shows how we view was as heroic, with the war medals having 'pretty coloured ribbons' suggests how war is not valued as much when it's over and all we care about is the medals. 

The 'meat snatching birds' sound like that the birds are waiting for the soldiers to die. The simile 'circle around and around like a carousel' gives the image of the birds continuously circling, waiting for the soldiers to die before they swoop in and eat them. Alternatively, 'horses to bolt' and 'birds to rise' could also be interpreted that warfare scares all life away, even 'meat snatching birds' - something which sounds sinister and cruel. 

The second stanza shows how the soldiers became ruthless and 'bloodthirsty'. This image sounds quite animalistic, like they've lost their morality.  

'To steal the muskets of the dead' makes the soldiers become 'stealthily visible' - paradox. Could show because their now invisible they don't have to hide who they really are. 

'Bold and bloodthirsty, true facsimiles of men' could suggest that they were like this before they died as they are an exact copy and they haven't changed yet being an angel has awakened their bloodthirsty nature. Could be that they had to hide it when they were alive but can show it now their dead. 

'Than was healthy' suggests that his father is no longer healthy and that the war has left him weak.