[It] is slightly disconcerting to find on examining the Collected Poems, that [Abse] has decided to reject so many of [his poems] himself! If it is not too indelicate a phrase for a doctor, he has been commendably ruthless in his pruning—retaining only one poem from After Every Green Thing, four poems from Walking Under Water, and about two-thirds of Tenants of the House, his first three books, as well as revising some of the poems and changing a couple of titles.

As a critic, I would not wish to quarrel much about his selection, though I have reservations about one or two of his exclusions. For instance, I would be sorry to lose The Abandoned, since this poem, concerned as it is with religious doubts and uncertainties, tells us something about one of the major preoccupations important to Abse's development—he has always brought a religious sensibility to bear upon his themes (using the term in its widest sense). It also makes a powerful impact upon the reader, perhaps because for the first time he attempts a direct approach to a subject he had previously been inclined to wrap up in allegory open to a variety of interpretations.

Similarly I would like to preserve Tenants of the House, the title poem of his third book. Published about the time that the Movement v Mavericks controversy was at its height (it will be remembered that Abse co-edited the Mavericks anthology), this poem has probably been regarded strictly as a period piece, tilting at the poets of the Movement…. But a closer examination reveals that his over-riding concern, in this and other poems, is with the pressures placed upon the individual to conform to the superficial values of present-day society, a theme which is treated at greater length and analysis in New Babylons…. (p. 35)

Like many modern poets confronted by the human situation, Dannie Abse has written poems which express a decidedly pessimistic attitude. His long Funland sequence, which he has described as The Waste Land gone mad, is a typical example. But that is one side of the coin, so to speak; for he has also written poems of celebration, poems affirming the strength and sustaining power of human love or affectionately presenting the comic intimacies of family life. However depressing the situation in which we find ourselves, human existence does not consist entirely of gloom, suffering and despair; there are surely moments of exultation and spiritual intensity, times of excitement and of faith in personal relationships, of humour and, if we are lucky, perhaps even occasional gaiety. In covering a wider range of human emotions in his poetry, Abse is closer to human experience as we know it than most contemporary poets, and provides a more balanced view of life, the affirmative as well as the negative, the hesitantly optimistic as well as the gloomily pessimistic. (pp. 35-6)

Like most of the poets who began to write in the Romantic climate of the Forties, when the dominant influence (especially for a poet born in Wales) was that of the wordy Dylan Thomas, Dannie Abse's earliest work tended to be declamatory, overburdened with conflicting images, and rich, too rich perhaps, in symbolic and mythological references. Abse makes no secret of the fact that his interest in poetry was stimulated, if not aroused, by the rhetorical open-air speeches of his well-known politician brother, Leo Abse, who has been a Member of Parliament for many years now and was at that period an enthusiastic supporter of the Republican cause in the Spanish Civil War. So that it would be easy to discuss his poetic development exclusively in terms of changes in technique; to trace the growing discipline in the control of material, the more colloquial use of language and the concentration upon instantly recognisable situations. There are exceptions to the rule, of course. It would be only too easy because superficially it would be true and demonstrable; but it would not be the whole truth. I suggest that these obvious changes in style, technique and content were symptomatic of changes taking place at a much deeper level, accounting for the more assured tone and the more mature outlook of his later work.

It seems to me that for a number of years Dannie Abse was profoundly involved with what was for him the vital question of personal identity in all its manifestations. It is the source of the dramatic tension and the unusually strong sense of alienation in his work…. This search for personal identity accounts for what some critics have described as the dichotomies or conflicts in his earlier poems. We can hardly complain since his attempts to probe and externalise his feelings in this area have resulted in some exciting poems….

[Aspects] of the predicament are explored in Odd, Return to Cardiff, The Magician, Two Voices, Surprise! Surprise!, The Game, and several other poems.

It would appear to confirm this belief that until the last two books there has been scarcely any evidence of his medical vocation in his poetry. His experience as a doctor has surprisingly been kept to himself, though it would have provided him with a wealth of subject material. When interviewed at Princeton, Abse admitted that he did not begin to accept that part of his identity until after the publication of Tenants of the House and added, significantly, '… the fact that I was a doctor didn't come into my work. I think that one should write as a whole man, and if one is a doctor, that should come in….'

Although Dannie Abse has produced outstanding poems at various stages of his poetic career, there can be little doubt that since he has been writing 'as a whole man' and accepting his medical profession within the total complexity of his experience, his poetry has gained in scope, imaginative depth and psychological insight. The surgery, the hospital ward and operating theatre are featured or serve as a background and allow the creative impulse to operate freely, holding nothing back, in such poems as Pathology of Colours, In Llandough Hospital, Hunt the Thimble, Miracles, The Stethoscope, the horrifying In the Theatre, and the superbly moving poem about childbirth, The Smile Was…. Funland, the long experimental satire in which the world is conceived as a mental institution with ourselves as the inmates, is an interesting extension of a characteristic Abse line of thought anticipated in a way by The Abandoned. If not so successful as The Smile Was, it does provide real evidence of Abse's potentialities and his new resources, and extends the line by T S Eliot—'The whole earth is our hospital'. If Dannie Abse continues to write poetry 'as a whole man', making use of his total experience and applying the craftsmanship he has acquired, he may well become one of our most important poets. I am certain that, considerable though his achievement already is, his finest poetry has still to come. (p. 36)