The Presence [Paperback]

`remarkable and tender'
--Sunday Times

It's a very moving document, suffused with the pain of losing Joan, at the same time acknowledging her continuing presence'

'For all its painful honesty, a surprisingly joyful and compelling
book... Imbued with all the best qualities of what it means to human and in
love'
--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

A fragment of autobiography written from the most private part of a poet's heart, with a pen dipped in blood and tears... Elegiac and celebratory --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

A distinguished poet's moving memoir of his wife who died in a car accident in 2005.

WINNER OF THE WALES BOOK OF THE YEAR

Loss, grief and love are the themes of this remarkable memoir from one of Britain's most distinguished poets.

Some months after Dannie Abse's wife Joan died in a car accident in June 2005, he began to write a diary which is both a record of present grief and a portrait of marriage which lasted more than fifty years. It is an extraordinary document, painful but celebratory; funny as well as sad, bursting with joy as well as sorrow and full of a deep understanding of what it means to be human.

Loss, grief and love are the themes of this remarkable memoir from one of Britain's most distinguished poets.

Some months after Dannie Abse's wife Joan died in a car accident in June 2005, he began to write a diary which is both a record of present grief and a portrait of marriage which lasted more than fifty years. It is an extraordinary document, painful but celebratory; funny as well as sad, bursting with joy as well as sorrow and full of a deep understanding of what it means to be human.

Acclaim for Dannie Abse's most recent volume of poetry, Running Late:

'His best work in a long life of brilliant writing' Maggie Gee, New Statesman

'This marvellous book of poetry' William Oxley, London Magazine

'This is a poet writing at the height of his powers' Tony Curtis, The Planet

'These poems are brilliant, savage, witty - the work of an old master' Stoddart Martin, Jewish Chronicle

'Truly remarkable... I recommend this book' Giles Goodland, Poetry Review

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

'He remains one of our few great poets of married love'

Elaine Feinstein, The Times

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Dannie Abse was for many years a chest specialist in a London teaching hospital. A poet, reviewer and playwright, he has written and edited more than sixteen books of poetry, as well as books about medicine and also fiction. 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 Running Late received the Roland Mathais Prize in 2007.