White Coat, Purple Coat - Softcover

Abse, Dannie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0892551771 ISBN 13: 9780892551774

Publisher: Persea, 1992

Synopsis

This collection spans the full range of the poet's published works from "The Uninvited" to "Ask the Bloody Horse", as well as incorporating new poems. Apart from poetry, Dannie Abse has published two novels and two autobiographical works: "A Poet in the Family" and "A Strong Dose of Myself".

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

This comprehensive volume of British poet Abse's work serves as both an introduction to and an enduring touchstone of his lyrical voice. A doctor and a poet, Abse brings to his writing a level of humanism often missing from contemporary verse; as he himself puts it, ``Humankind / cannot bear very much unreality.'' Even so, what ``reality'' his poems reflect often borders on the unbearable: in ``In the theatre'' a man undergoing a brain probe cries out, `` `You sod, / leave my soul alone, leave my soul alone.' '' A recurrent theme is the conflict between science and spirituality, as suggested by an image of a white coat ``always stained with blood'' and a purple coat, marked by ``the rose.'' In a long poem, ``Funland,'' Abse deals in depth with the difficulties of believing in both, and, in his closing poem, describes himself as an amalgam of the two: ``And phantom rose and blood most real / compose a hybrid style; / white coat and purple coat / few men can reconcile.'' It is the very effort to reconcile that gives his work its memorable strength.

Copyright 1991 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Persea
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0892551771
• ISBN 13: 9780892551774
• Binding: Paperback