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Dannie Abse, born in 1923, poet and doctor and a former President of the Poetry Society; has written over thirty books including, poetry, memoir, fiction, plays, and criticism. His memoir The Presence was Wales Book of the Year and he is a recipient of the Wilfred Owen Award. In 2012, he was awarded a CBE. 2013 marks Dannie Abse's 90th birthday. In his lifetime he has published an astonishing array of work including poetry, fiction, criticism, plays and autobiography but it is as a poet that he is best known and loved. His theatrical work Pythagoras (Smith) was performed at Pentameters in 2012. In Speak, Old Parrot he returns to themes of loss, love, medicine and its moral implications, the nature of creativity, Jewish folk tradition and the passing of time. The poems are observant of the outside world as well as of the inner life and emotions, but most of all they are to be joyfully read and enjoyed. The ventriloquist bird invoked at the beginning and end of Dannie Abse's new collection is bright-plumed but fugitive. On its wing we enter a rich poetic landscape of real and imagined worlds, in which humour and tragedy appear in turn with startling vividness. At the autobiographical heart of this extraordinary collection, published in Dannie Abse's ninetieth year, is a particular vision of human possibilities, a delight in things seen and achieved and an awareness of the transience of it all. Speak, Old Parrot confirms Dannie Abse's position as a significant figure in British poetry, as well as one of Britain's best loved poets.