Uncle Isidore

Dannie Abse

1976

When I observe a toothless ex-violinist,

with more hair than face, sprawled like Karl Marx

on a park seat or slumped, dead or asleep,

in the central heat of a public library

I think of Uncle Isidore—smelly

schnorrer and lemon-tea bolshevik—my foreign

distant relative, not always distant.

Before Auschwitz, Treblinka, he seemed near,

those days of…

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Creator Bio

Dannie Abse

1923–2014

With dual careers in writing and medicine, Dannie Abse was a Welsh physician, poet, playwright, and novelist who lived in London. His poetry, addressing identity and existence as well as daily life, has been collected in over a dozen volumes. In addition, Abse published more than ten plays, several novels, and essays and stories about medicine. Among other honors, he received the Charles Henry Foyle Award, the Jewish Chronicle Book Award, the Cholmondeley Award, and the Wilfred Owen poetry award.

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