ABSE, DANNIE

(b. 1923)

Welsh poet and playwright. He was born in Cardiff. He published his first volume of poetry while still a medical student. HisCollected Poems,1948-76draw together his roles as Jew, Welshman, British poet, doctor, bourgeois family man, bohemian observer, pragmatist and mystic. In the collectionsWay Out in the CentreandAsk the Bloody Horse, he displays an affinity with midrashic, Hasidic, and kabbalistic legends.