Dannie Abse bio

Dannie Abse was born in Cardiff, Wales to a Jewish family in 1923. He has two older brothers Leo and Wilfred. Dannie Abse studied Medicine at the University of Wales College of Medicine, Westminster Hospital Medical School and King's College London. Abse was a specialist doctor for over 30 years. 

Abse has won numerous awards for his poems and has received an honorary doctorate from the University of Wales in 1989. Dannie Abse has lived in Hampstead, London for several decades where he used to write an article for a local newspaper called the Ham & High. 

In 2005, his wife Joan Abse died in a car accident. The Presence, a memoir of the year after his wife died, was published in 2007 and won the 2008 Wales Book of the Year award.

Reaction to Reference Back

Reference Back is about the persona, possibly Larkin himself, living at his mothers house, listening to music from his room that they both share a love of. Whilst this makes the mother sad as the music transports her back to her youth when she used to play this music, the persona also reflects on how he is 'wasting my time at home' suggesting maybe that he wishes that he was in his own home listening to this music without his mother being there. Another hint that he is unhappy at still being at home is 'to my unsatisfactory prime' this could be a hint that he feels it should be his time to go and have a family and to have his own house yet he still lives alone with his mother. 

Reaction to Home is so Sad

I really enjoyed this poem and it initially reminded me of a dog yearning for its owner to come back. From the poem we get the impression that the person who lived in the house had just recently passed away and the house was still as they'd left it, as if waiting for them to get back. 

Reaction to For Sidney Bechet

For Sidney Bechet is Philip Larkins tribute to the Jazz Player Sidney Bechet. The persona says how hearing him play can almost transport him to New Orleans and he can imagine that he is there, picturing all the things that are going on around him. I think the line in the first stanza -"And in all ears appropriate falsehood wakes" means that the audience get lost in his music, and sets their imaginations loose, all in their own separate day dreams. Another reference to how the music makes the persona feel is "Is where your speech alone is understood". I think that this is showing that to the persona, the music speaks more clearly and more meaningful than perhaps sometimes words. 

Reaction to Love Songs in Age

From the poem we see sheet music that has been forgotten about over the years that have been worn and torn by everyday life and have almost become part of the furniture. However, when the woman in the poem has become widowed, she discovers the music, as if waiting for her, and she remembers how she used to play them. The poem talks of how love promises so many things and then does not deliver. "It had not done so then, and could not now".  - This could connotate that thoughts of marriage in her youth did not please her, and it still does not now and also that she never wanted to get married to start with, but love promised so much for her but failed to deliver. 

Reaction to Mr Bleaney

Mr Bleaney is about the persona going to visit a flat in a industrial area and learning through the landlord that the previous occupant was a man called Mr Bleaney. The persona then through the characteristics of the flat feels like he knows Mr Bleaney and all of his habits. We get the impression that the persona views himself superior to Mr Bleaney but towards the end it becomes apparent that the persona thinks they are more a like than he thought. 

Reaction to Dockery & Son

In Dockery & Son we see the persona reminiscing about his time at University in his youth when the Dean their speaks of the personas old friend Dockery, informing him that Dockery's son now goes there now. The persona is then transported back through his youth there, remembering the things that himself and Dockery used to do.
We see the persona question whether having a son is a good thing, with the persona asking why Dockery thought that he should be added to by increasing the number of Dockery's in the world, when the persona thinks that this has actually diluted Dockery Snr, now that he has had a son.
We also see the persona reflect on his own life, wondering where all his time has gone and he reveals to us that he has no wife, son or house, yet he is comfortable living like this.

'Not from what
We think truest, or most want to do:
Those warp tight-shut, like doors. They're more a style
Our lives bring with them: habit for a while,
Suddenly they harden into all we've got'

I think Larkin is here saying that there is no free will -- we are the product of the choices we've made and we only do things because of the choices we've previously made in our lives. In the poem there is an epiphany, that being life goes quickly, and every life choice you makes narrows down the options for your next set of choices until one day you get to an age when you realise your stuck with them and can't go back.

analysis of Dannie Abse's Sons

Reaction to Talking in Bed

Talking in Bed to me, seemed like a paradox. Throughout the poem there were so many opposites - 'easiest' and 'unrest', 'honest' and 'untrue', 'together' and 'isolation'. I think that as you read the poem, it becomes apparent that this is not young love, but middle aged/old love, something that has lasted for a long time. I think there is a message towards the end of how young loves words are 'true and kind' but when love has aged, it no longer stays that way and I think that perhaps Larkin is saying here that being kind is not always being true.

Reaction to Self's the Man

I felt that Self's the Man was quite easy to understand and to pick up the message of the poem. The persona throughout seems to be joking and is quite hyperbolic, so it leaves you questioning how much you can actually believe. The fact that there is consistently rhyming couplets throughout the poem not only makes it sound like a limeric, but also like the persona is mocking Arnold and the life he has chosen. Whilst it is apparent that the persona has actively chosen not to marry because he wants peace, and feels that marriage will be the death of you, the persona recognizes that this is the life Arnold has chosen, and that even though the persona has pointed out all the stress Arnold goes through, Arnold is not to be pitied. I understood the line 'without them sending a van' to be like death, and that through the stress that marriage and children brings, it would send Arnold to an early grave.
I think there is an underlying message in this poem that Larkin has made about life choices, and how they cannot be changed once you've made them and I think for this reason the poem links well with Larkin's other poem, Dockery & Son.

Reaction to Broadcast

I enjoyed Broadcast and got the impression from the poem that not only was it dedicated to his love for music, but also to the woman in the poem. It sounds to me like the persona and the woman are sharing the experience together, even though they are separated.Whilst this is happening, the persona is also trying to capture the sounds of the concert in words, by using onomatopoeia and sibilance and at one point has personified the violin, making it 'snivel'.