Abse, Dannie - Roland Mathias (essay date 1967)

Roland Mathias (essay date 1967)

SOURCE: Mathias, Roland. “The Poetry of Dannie Abse: II.” Anglo-Welsh Review 16, no. 38 (winter 1967): 84-98.

[In the following essay, Mathias examines the poems in Tenants of the House and Poems, Golders Green.]

‘The Water Diviner,’ printed second in Poems, Golders Green, is one of several pieces in which Dannie Abse treats either of the predicament of poets as a class or of himself in particular.

Late, I have come to a parched land
doubting my gift, if gift I have,
the inspiration of water
spilt, swallowed in the sand.

He reflects that instead of transforming ‘amorphous mass’

so that the aged gods might dance
and golden structures form

he should have built

                                                  plain brick on brick
a water tower.

In other words, he chose to work...

[The entire page is 6825 words long]

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