Collected Poems
Published on 27. November 1997
Book
Paperback/Softback
192 pages
978-1-85754-335-3 (ISBN)
Description
The Welsh publishing house Gwasg Gomer published Gillian Clarke's first full collection of poems, The Sundial, in 1978. In the twenty years since then the poet has become one of the best-loved and most widely read writers of Wales, well-known for her readings, for her radio work and her workshops.
'Gillian Clarke's poems ring with lucidity and power[...] her work is both personal and archetypal, built out of language as concrete as it is musical,' the Times Literary Supplement said. She combines traditional skills with an original voice and outlook, and with a history which includes the unwritten stories of Welsh women. Her Selected Poems has proven one of the most popular volumes of modern Welsh poetry, having gone through seven printings in a dozen years. 'Her language has a quality both casual and intense, mundane and visionary,' the Listener said of Letter from a Far Country. 'There is no gaudiness in her poetry; instead, the reader is aware of a generosity of spirit which allows the poems' subjects their own unbullied reality.'
Gillian Clarke is a severe critic of her own poems. Collected Poems includes all that she wishes to preserve of her work to date.
'Gillian Clarke's poems ring with lucidity and power[...] her work is both personal and archetypal, built out of language as concrete as it is musical,' the Times Literary Supplement said. She combines traditional skills with an original voice and outlook, and with a history which includes the unwritten stories of Welsh women. Her Selected Poems has proven one of the most popular volumes of modern Welsh poetry, having gone through seven printings in a dozen years. 'Her language has a quality both casual and intense, mundane and visionary,' the Listener said of Letter from a Far Country. 'There is no gaudiness in her poetry; instead, the reader is aware of a generosity of spirit which allows the poems' subjects their own unbullied reality.'
Gillian Clarke is a severe critic of her own poems. Collected Poems includes all that she wishes to preserve of her work to date.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Manchester
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 134 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
243 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-85754-335-3 (9781857543353)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Born in Cardiff, Gillian Clarke is a poet, playwright, editor, broadcaster, lecturer and translator (from Welsh). She edited the Anglo-Welsh Review from 1975 to 1984, and has taught creative writing in primary and secondary schools and at university level. She is president of Ty Newydd, the writers' centre in North Wales which she co-founded in 1990. Since 1994 she has been a tutor in Creative Writing at the University of Glamorgan. Her poetry is studied by GCSE and A Level students throughout Britain. She has given poetry readings and lectures in Europe and the United States, and her work has been translated into ten languages. She has a daughter and two sons, and now lives with her architect husband on a smallholding in Ceredigion, Wales, where they raise a small flock of sheep, and care for the land according to organic and conservation practice.
Gillian Clarke was National Poet of Wales 2008 - 2015.
Carcanet has published her Selected Poems (1985), Letting in the Rumour (1989, Poetry Book Society Recommendation), The King of Britain's Daughter (1993), Collected Poems (1997), Five Fields (1998) and Making the Beds for the Dead (2004).
Listen to Gillian in conversation with Nadia Kingsley on the Fair Acre Press DIVERSIFLY podcastabout her writing process, what poetry is, and the Welsh language.
Gillian Clarke was National Poet of Wales 2008 - 2015.
Carcanet has published her Selected Poems (1985), Letting in the Rumour (1989, Poetry Book Society Recommendation), The King of Britain's Daughter (1993), Collected Poems (1997), Five Fields (1998) and Making the Beds for the Dead (2004).
Listen to Gillian in conversation with Nadia Kingsley on the Fair Acre Press DIVERSIFLY podcastabout her writing process, what poetry is, and the Welsh language.
Content
from The Sundial
The Sundial Journey Snow on the MountainBlaen CwrtBaby-Sitting CalfNightrideCatrin Still Life Storwm Awst Death of a Young Woman Swinging Lunchtime Lecture Dyddgu Replies to Dafydd At Ystrad Fflur Railway Tracks Foghorns Curlew Burning Nettles Last Rites Harvest at Mynachlog ClywedogChoughs St Thomas's Day
from Letter from a Far CountryWhite RosesReturn to Login Miracle on St David's Day East Moors Scything Jac Codi Baw Ram Buzzard Friesian Bull Sunday Taid's Funeral Letter from a Far Country Kingfishers at CondatSeamstress at St LeonLes Grottes Heron at Port Talbot Suicide on Pentwyn BridgePlums Death of a Cat Cardiff ElmsSheila na Gig at KilpeckSiege Lly^r Blodeuwedd Shadows in Llanbadarn The Water-Diviner
from Selected PoemsSyphoning the Spring A Dream of Horses OctoberClimbing Cader IdrisCastell y BereToday Taid's Grave Tadzekistan Shearing
from Letting in the RumourAt One Thousand Feet Neighbours Windmill Listening for TrainsStormSeal Ichthyosaur Cold Knap LakeApplesOrangesFires on Lly^nTalking of Burnings in Walter Savage Landor's SmithyBorder Post Script MargedOverheard in County SligoShawl My Box Falling RoadblockBinaryThe Hare Hare in JulyTrophy The Rothko RoomRed Poppy FebruaryGannet Night FlyingIn JanuaryTory Party Conference, Bournemouth, 1986 Times like These Slate Mine Roofing Hearthstone Pipistrelle Fulmarus Glacialis Racing PigeonMagpie in Snow Tawny OwlPeregrine Falcon Clocks Cofiant
from The King of Britain's DaughterBlood Musician The ListenersAnorexicThe Vet Baltic Hoelderlin in Tubingen The PoetWild Sound Swimming with SealsLurcher LamentNo Hands Olwen Takes Her First Steps on the Word Processor in Time of WarEclipse of the MoonAdvent The LighthouseOn Air Wind Gauge Grave GodThe Angelus Family HouseStealing Peas Sunday Breakers Yard The LoftHay Beudy Walking on Water The West Window of York Minster St Winefride's Well Coming Home The Wind-Chimes The King of Britain's Daughter
Index of titles Index of first lines
The Sundial Journey Snow on the MountainBlaen CwrtBaby-Sitting CalfNightrideCatrin Still Life Storwm Awst Death of a Young Woman Swinging Lunchtime Lecture Dyddgu Replies to Dafydd At Ystrad Fflur Railway Tracks Foghorns Curlew Burning Nettles Last Rites Harvest at Mynachlog ClywedogChoughs St Thomas's Day
from Letter from a Far CountryWhite RosesReturn to Login Miracle on St David's Day East Moors Scything Jac Codi Baw Ram Buzzard Friesian Bull Sunday Taid's Funeral Letter from a Far Country Kingfishers at CondatSeamstress at St LeonLes Grottes Heron at Port Talbot Suicide on Pentwyn BridgePlums Death of a Cat Cardiff ElmsSheila na Gig at KilpeckSiege Lly^r Blodeuwedd Shadows in Llanbadarn The Water-Diviner
from Selected PoemsSyphoning the Spring A Dream of Horses OctoberClimbing Cader IdrisCastell y BereToday Taid's Grave Tadzekistan Shearing
from Letting in the RumourAt One Thousand Feet Neighbours Windmill Listening for TrainsStormSeal Ichthyosaur Cold Knap LakeApplesOrangesFires on Lly^nTalking of Burnings in Walter Savage Landor's SmithyBorder Post Script MargedOverheard in County SligoShawl My Box Falling RoadblockBinaryThe Hare Hare in JulyTrophy The Rothko RoomRed Poppy FebruaryGannet Night FlyingIn JanuaryTory Party Conference, Bournemouth, 1986 Times like These Slate Mine Roofing Hearthstone Pipistrelle Fulmarus Glacialis Racing PigeonMagpie in Snow Tawny OwlPeregrine Falcon Clocks Cofiant
from The King of Britain's DaughterBlood Musician The ListenersAnorexicThe Vet Baltic Hoelderlin in Tubingen The PoetWild Sound Swimming with SealsLurcher LamentNo Hands Olwen Takes Her First Steps on the Word Processor in Time of WarEclipse of the MoonAdvent The LighthouseOn Air Wind Gauge Grave GodThe Angelus Family HouseStealing Peas Sunday Breakers Yard The LoftHay Beudy Walking on Water The West Window of York Minster St Winefride's Well Coming Home The Wind-Chimes The King of Britain's Daughter
Index of titles Index of first lines