Mr. Dannie Abse's poetry [in Tenants of the House] is full of character and is assignable to no literary school. It is skilful, but gives the impression that it has no great opinion of skill. Individuality is what lends it force, and the style is clearly the man, a coincidence which is becoming more and more rare. Technique has no opinions; but an individual voice must have something to say, and Mr. Abse's poetry interests as much by what he says as by his way of saying it, which is often rough and ready. In the religious poems he uses allegory in such a natural way that we can read several meanings, each supplementing the others. I fancy that Mr. Abse could write a modern Everyman. (p. 392)

Edwin Muir, "Kinds of Poetry," in New Statesman (© 1957 The Statesman & Nation Publishing Co. Ltd.), Vol. LIV, No. 1385, September 28, 1957, pp. 391-92.∗