SOURCE: Mott, Michael. “Recent Developments in British Poetry.” Poetry 118, no. 2 (1971): 106-07.

In the following excerpted review, Mott discusses the chilling imagery that appears in Abse's Collected Poems.

Dannie Abse's work has appeared here in a number of anthologies; his Selected Poems will win him a wider attention. The best of the poems in the selection are from his most recent collection, A Small Desperation (1968). In the earlier part of the book there are some flaws and uncertainties, though “The Second Coming” has the cool and chilling echo of old folk poetry in it and “The Victim of Aulis,” also from Tenants of the House (1957), almost succeeds in bringing into the present the becalmed expedition to Troy.

“From a Suburban Window,” in the last collection, draws the picture of an hour in a quiet street with an effectiveness that makes it difficult to forget. Another urban landscape, “3 a.m...