Speak, Old Parrot - Hardcover

Abse, Dannie

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0091944643 ISBN 13: 9780091944643

Publisher: Hutchinson, 2013

Synopsis

2013 marks Dannie Abse's 90th birthday. In his lifetime he has published an astonishing array of work including poetry, fiction, criticism, plays, and autobiography, but it is as a poet that he is best known and loved. In Speak, Old Parrot he returns to themes of loss, love, medicine and its moral implications, the nature of creativity, Jewish folk tradition, and the passing of time. The poems are observant of the outside world as well as the inner life and emotions, but most of all they are a joy to read.

About this title

About the Author

Dannie Abse is a poet, author, doctor, and playwright. He has written and edited more than sixteen books of poetry, as well as fiction and a range of other publications. He is the author of Ash on a Young Man's Sleeve and several autobiographical volumes, the most recent of which, Goodbye, Twentieth Century, was published by Pimlico in 2001 to critical acclaim. His most recent novel, The Strange Case of Dr Simmonds & Dr Glas, was published in 2002 and long-listed for the Booker Prize. In 2003 his New and Collected Poems received the Special Commendation of the Poetry Book Society, and his book of poetry, Running Late, received the Roland Mathais Prize in 2007. The Presence was the winner of the prestigious Wales Book of the Year award for 2008. He is president of the Welsh Academy of Letters and was recently awarded a CBE.

Review

"What's the best thing about judging the Forward prizes? Free books? Reassessing a poet you hadn't paid enough attention to? Those are good, but the best might be the poems, and odd lines, that stick in your head. They may be from books that didn't even make the shortlist, but they've still made a mark - Dannie Abse's line "Men become mortal when their fathers die" from his collection Speak, Old Parrot, isn't going to leave me any time soon." * Guardian Books Blog * "The phenomenal Dr Abse still prescribes verbal wit and human warmth, radiant memory and blazing perception, as remedies against a time of life when "all pavements slope uphill". This veteran flyer can still sing and swoop." * Independent * "Dannie Abse's line "Men become mortal when their fathers die" from his collection Speak, Old Parrot, isn't going to leave me any time soon." -- Sheenagh Pugh * Guardian * "It's a book packed with both feeling and swagger, a tumbling energy that belies the closing farewell." * Literary Review * "There is much that could be said about this inspiring collection, and all of it positive. It should be bought, read and re-read." * New Welsh Review *

Edition details

• Publisher: Hutchinson
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0091944643
• ISBN 13: 9780091944643
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 80