An interview with Dannie Abse

An interview with Dannie Abse D. Heyward Brock On a crisp, sunny day in February 1982, I took the early train from Colchester, where I was living for the year, down to London to interview Dr. Dannie Abse, perhaps the most important physician-poet writing in English today. I arrived at the Liverpool Street Station after about an hour's ride and took the Central Line of the London underground to Tottenham Court Road Station, where I transferred to the Northern Line and headed for a part of London I'd never been before—Golders Green. When I disembarked at Golders Green, to get my sense of direction, I looked for the cenotaph Dr. Abse had described to me on the phone a few days before. Following his instructions, I had no problem at all walking the few short blocks to Hodford Road, where the Abses reside. All the way I kept wondering what this man whose poems, plays, and stories I had read and enjoyed so much would be like in person. I knew the biographical facts of his life, and I thought I had been able to glean something of his personality and ideas from his works, but one can never be sure about writers until one actually meets them. Born in Cardiff, Wales, in 1923, Dannie Abse was the youngest child of Rudy and Kate (Shepherd) Abse. He was educated at the University of Wales, Kings College (London), and Westminster Hospital. He became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1949 and was licensed by the Royal College of Physicians in 1950. In 1951 he married Joan Mercer, an art historian, and he served as a Squadron Leader in the Royal Air Force from 1951 to 1955. Since 1955, Dr. Abse has been a part-time physician at a London Chest Clinic and a free-lance writer. In 1973-74 he was writer in residence at Princeton University. Dannie and Joan have AN INTERVIEW WITH DANNIE ABSE three children. They live in North London, but they also spend some time at another residence in South Wales. Dannie Abse is a versatile writer—poet, playwright, novelist, essayist , editor, and critic. In 1960 his play, House of Cowards, won the Charles Henry Foyle Award, and in 1979 he was given the Welsh Arts Council Literature Award for another of his plays—Pythagoras. He received both the Jewish Chronicle Book Award and the Welsh Arts Council Literature Award for his Selected Poems in 1970. His three novels, including an autobiographical one called Ash on a Young Man's Sleeve, have been well received. His most recent volume of poems is entitled One-Legged on Ice (Univ. of Georgia Press, 1983). Abse has written several radio plays, has edited books on modern poetry and European verse, and has been a contributor to the New Yorker, Encounter, Punch, The Times Literary Supplement and other magazines. Critics have often noted Abse's depiction of everyday life, including his own medical experience, in his poetry, and some have discerned "the chasm between the comfort of his life and the discomfort of his thoughts." Abse concerns himself with serious issues, but he also reveals a "clever wit in locating the fun in circumstances both grave and trivial." His humor and poetic voice are frequently said to be peculiarly Welsh. Brock: Thank you very much, Dr. Abse, for allowing me to come into your home, for receiving me with such hospitality, and for agreeing to this interview. I'm sure you've been asked many times some of the same questions I'll probably be asking, but I'll request your indulgence. How is it that you have been able to combine the career of medicine and a writing career with such apparent success? This seems particularly noteworthy considering the specialized nature of the English educational system . Abse: Well, probably because as a doctor I've had a limited job—a limited number of hours, that is—and I've specialized so much that it's almost as if I were an expert on the right apex of the right lung. I think a writer does need a neurosis of leisure, he does need...