Cricket Ball

Key Themes:  Memories, life decisions, sport
Links To Larkin: Love songs in age, For Sydney Bechet 
Summary Of The Poem: 
This poem is about looking back at a cricket match Dannie Abse went to when he was a boy and portrays his thoughts and notions of the game whilst watching. From reading the poem we see that he describes the game and the way that the ball flies across the grounds and hits a hotel window. After this has been described we then see that the persona begins to describe their desire of the cricket ball rising higher than ever before. Throughout this stanza we are able to see that Abse is putting across the message that this is the rise to fame and how easily anyone can imagine becoming famous and how easy it seems to become famous. In the first stanza we see that there is more freedom as there is no fame towards the players of the cricket team giving us a more positive outlook on the game. As we get further through this poem we see that Abse starts to shows us life choices and how they can seem so small, yet when you look back on life the decisions seem a lot bigger and like they have had a much bigger impact. The cricket ball beginning to fly much higher suggests that its a metaphor to the audience at the match and to the reader and indicates that greater things in life are possible for anyone to achieve, as long as you keep working hard and keep putting in the effort and the time.

Two Photographs

Key Themes: Memories, Love, Death
Links To Larkin: Love songs in age, 
Summary Of The Poem: This poem talks about how each of the grandmother's are similar and loved equally yet at the same time they are the complete opposite of each other. Furthermore, towards the end of the poem Abse goes on to say that although we can all remember things and then we have those memories, but once we die all that remains of the memories is the material objects such as 'two photographs'. 

Blond Boys

Key Themes: Love, memories, Life decisions
Links To Larkin:Summary Of The Poem: Each of the stanzas reflect the chunks of memories that are coming back to Eva Jones, and they also reflect the breaths of shock by the persona on the sighting.  Furthermore this poem is about the persona remembering his first love and how it came to an end so suddenly. This has been triggered by the persona seeing his first love in 'Stockhom' whilst going out by himself.