SOURCE: Stuttaford, Genevieve. Review of White Coat, Purple Coat: Collected Poems 1948-1988, by Dannie Abse. Publishers Weekly 238, no. 6 (1 February 1991): 72.

In the following review, Stuttaford offers a positive assessment of White Coat, Purple Coat: Collected Poems 1948-1988.

This comprehensive volume of British poet Abse's work serves as both an introduction to and an enduring touch-stone of his lyrical voice. A doctor and a poet, Abse brings to his writing a level of humanism often missing from contemporary verse; as he himself puts it, “Humankind / cannot bear very much unreality.” Even so, what “reality” his poems reflect often borders on the unbearable: in “In the theatre” a man undergoing a brain probe cries out, “‘You sod, / leave my soul alone, leave my soul alone.’” A recurrent theme is the conflict between science and spirituality, as suggested by an image of a white coat “always stained with blood” and a purple...