Sons by Dannie Abse

This poem is essentially about being a father to a teenage boy that seems to be in a bit of a foul mood. This is evident in the first line "Sarcastic sons slam front doors."
Abse then begins reminiscing about his own youth, how he "was like that" too.
The third stanza focuses on teenagers he has watched in London, which leads him back to think about the doors slammed on a Cardiff evening and how they really aren't all that different no matter where they come from.

The final stanza depicts fairly accurately what it is like to be an adolescent "In adult rooms / the hesitant sense of not quite belonging". This poem really is very accurate.

Last Visit to 198 Cathedral Road by Dannie Abse

(Before reading) The name of this poem really stood out for me. It says closure and finality. It's obviously going to be about death.

(After reading) This poem made me think of two things-

1. Home is so Sad by Philip Larkin
2. The Old Apartment, a song by The Barenaked Ladies

First of all, I think the links with Larkin are pretty strong here in that it is about coming back to the family home after the death of a parent (or parents). However, I think that it is so much easier to empathise with the Abse poem because as readers we are FAR more subject to the raw emotion in his poems that we pretty much only see in Larkin when he's talking about music.

I thought of this particular song as I was reading through it because it's also about the idea of going back to a place you once called home and being a little upset about how it couldn't stay that way forever.

A Winter Visit by Dannie Abse

I didn't see this poem as particularly gloomy. Although Abse describes someone who is presumably his mother as "agéd and frail", I can't help but imagine that through all the bird-like imagery he is trying his best to paint the old woman in a very positive light.
Abse himself is, however,upset at how old and willing to die she is but must put on a brave face, saying that he "inhibits a white coat not a black" suggesting that since he's a Doctor he must be particularly thick-skinned and optimistic. Basically, she's not dead yet so he has no real reason to grief.

Mr Bleaney by Philip Larkin

Mr Bleaney is an interesting poem in that the free will of the persona is called into question. The previous owner, Br Bleaney, has moved out leaving only a few items behind. Nothing seems all that important to either Bleaney or the persona and there's a suggestion that they both live quite a bland and meaningless life.
Larkin says  "stub my fags on the same saucer-souvenir" which gives the impression that for both of them there was little to do in their free time than to sit around and smoke.
Larkin speculates that neither Bleaney nor the persona were particularly happy about living in this apartment. This is evident when the persona begins imagining Bleaney at home and "telling himself that this is home". This implies that it was not he did not like staying there and actually needed to convince himself that it wasn't really so bad.
The  apartment itself seems to contradict this.  A "thin and frayed" curtain, "no hook/Behind the door" and a "sixty-watt bulb" all suggest that to both Bleaney and the persona this apartment was little more than cheap living space and in no way anything that they could call 'home'.

Characteristics of Larkin's Poetry

Larkin's The Whitsun Weddings all have some very similar characteristics. They often portray a very reflective and often cynical view of life, suggesting that the persona in most of the poems is a bit of an outsider and an introvert. Isolation isn't always a bad thing in his eyes.

Two key themes that are both VERY prominent are death and time.

His message through the poems is essentially that time will always keep moving forward, once it's gone you can never get it back and it will eventually get us all. This is essentially the same message portrayed in the faux children's internet series 'Don't Hug Me I'm Scared'. This falsely friendly video's underlying message is also that we can never get time back, and the only thing left for us is death.

The persona will often start out as very dismissive, but as the poem progresses will look deeper into the subject of the poem, until reaching an epiphany and then the attitude changes completely.

The Whitsun Weddings- an overview

Larkin's collection The Whitsun Weddings is obviously a very good bit of poetry.

 Is he really a grumpy old man just waiting to die? No, I don't think he was. I think that through The Whitsun Weddings, he is really just reflecting. He often gives us the idea that loneliness isn't always a bad thing. Being on your own gives you time to stop and think about things. About your life. I personally really like this idea.