Two for Joy by Dannie Abse

Dannie Abse's 2010 collection Two for Joy

I have posted a number of the poems from this excellent collection and I think that they can largely speak for themselves.  The collection is where we could call a "prequel" to the book The Presence, Abse's memior of the time after the sudden death of his wife in a car crash. 

That is an intensely personal work and it feels an amazing privilege to have been allowed into his inner world.  The collection Two for Joy is sub-titled "scenes from married life" and what we get is more of the powerful love of their marriage, not the stuff of Hollywood chic flicks but real everyday love. 

Reading these poems with the foreknowledge of the pain Abse felt after his wife's death makes them bitter sweet - but then isn't all love edged with that fear that one day one of you will have to go it alone. When we come to the end of the collection and again deal with death these are poems that I am not ashamed to say created a physical reaction, these are poems which will make you cry.