Context

Gillian Clarke was born in Cardiff in 1937. She has spent most of her life in Wales - her parents were both Welsh speakers and she speaks both English and Welsh: she uses many Welsh stories and myths in her work. She often writes about nature and her observations of people. Her first poems were published in 1970; she has since written three collections of poetry.

She edited the Anglo-Welsh Review from 1975 to 1984 and has taught creative writing in schools. She now works as a poet, freelance writer and broadcaster and is a lecturer at the University of Glamorgan. She has a daughter (Catrin) and two sons and lives on a smallholding in Wales.

She has an excellent website, www.gillianclarke.co.uk, which includes notes on her poetry. If you go to the website, you can email her questions about particular poems. She will answer your query - and your question may even be added to the site. She has kindly allowed us to feature some of her ideas here on GCSE Bitesize. (Any comments on the poems that appear below in "quotation marks" are taken from her website.)

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