Gillian Clarke Biography

British poet, born in Cardiff, educated at University College, Cardiff. She became a news researcher with the BBC in 1958, lectured at Gwent College of Art and Design (1975–84), and has worked extensively as a teacher of creative writing. From 1976 to 1984 she edited the Anglo-Welsh Review. Although her first two collections of poetry, Snow on the Mountain (1972) and The Sundial (1978), were favourably received, it was not until the appearance of Letter from a Far Country in 1982 that her work was widely acclaimed. Selected Poems (1985) and letting in the Rumour (1989) confirmed her standing as one of the most important of contemporary British women poets. Many early poems displayed her ability to imbue firmly particularized incidents with lyrical and visionary significances. Among her most impressive work are the long sequences ‘Letter from a Far Country’ and ‘Cofiant’, exploratory meditations in which local and personal experience fuses with historical and cultural themes drawn from her family's past. The disciplined flexibility of structure in her verse continues to display a high level of accomplishment in The King of Britain's Daughter (1993).