Startled by the visible



© Image by Caroline Forbes

Dannie Abse, born in 1923, is a poet, playwright and novelist whose literary career spans half a century, the first of his fourteen collections of poetry, After Every Green Thing, being published in 1948, his latest selected appearing in 2009. In between Abse has established himself as one of Britain's leading and most popular poets. Brought up in Cardiff, Abse draws on both his Welsh roots and Jewish inheritance but is above all famous for combining the twin careers of author and doctor. The influence of the latter on the former is considerable and has helped develop his unique identity in British poetry.

You can listen to him reading some of his poems here.

The following poem appeared in Poems on the Underground 10.


Mysteries


At night, I do not know who I am
when I dream, when I am sleeping.

Awakened, I hold my breath and listen:
a thumbnail scratches the other side of the wall.

At midday, I enter a sunlit room
to observe the lamplight on for no reason.

I should know by now that few octaves can be heard,
that a vision dies from being too long stared at;

that the whole of recorded history even
is but a little gossip in a great silence;

that a magnesium flash cannot illumine,
for one single moment, the invisible.

I do not complain. I start with the visible
and am startled by the visible.

Dannie Abse


Read the poem several times over the course of the next couple of days. Don't write anything down at first. After a fourth or fifth reading, make free notes of your responses: direct comments about the poem, what the poem made you think about, what it made you feel. Anything at all that comes into your head, but try and include at least one memory the poem made you think about

Put these notes away for a further couple of days before reading back over them and beginning to draft your own poem.

Write well.
L x