Gillian Clarke

Wonderful poems, starting with Clarke's viewing of a "Blood Moon" lunar eclipse in 2019, an ominous precursor to her reflections on the COVID pandemic, a reminder of the unnecessary deaths, the silence of those taken by the virus, the silence of those in power regarding those deaths, and the gradual quietening of the world during lockdown and the temporary resurgence of the natural world.

The poems gradually turn to the changing of seasons, reminiscences of the poet's childhood, her mother, show more the Welsh name her father wanted for her, Gwenllian, connecting her with Llewellyn's daughter and her sad fate at the hands of the English. In her 87th year, Clarke's writing remains as powerful as ever.

I l always earn something of Welsh culture from Clarke's poetry, this time about penillion music, which sent me to some wonderful recordings on You Tube of Welsh harpist and singer, Ossian Ellis. show less

Zoology is a collection of poems that is deeply rooted in the countryside and the seasons. Beginning with Missing, there are mini collections of poems on Hafod Y Llan, museums and other taken from over the course of a year. The collection ends with an eulogy to a variety of friends and fellow poets. Particular favourites include Last Gather, Silent and River.

After frozen ground, a loosening / After silence, birdsong, a beginning / Earth’s skin pricks with growth

This is the second of show more Gillian Clarke’s poetry collections that I have read in as many weeks, having been recommended to me by a and artist on twitter. She draws deep from her childhood and the natural world to form the words, there are themes that run back and forwards throughout the book. For some, this might be repetitive, but I liked the way that it reinforces the way that the seasons repeat without fail every year. I think this was even better than Five Fields.

Maybe good men will again come to power, truth speak / And words have meaning again show less

I don’t read as much poetry as I feel that I should do, and when an artist who follows me on Twitter recommended this poet and my library had a copy, I’d thought that I would have nothing to lose. From what I can gather Clarke usually draws inspiration for her prose from the Welsh landscape and there are elements of this in the collection. However, in here, she has taken a wider brief and looked to the city as an extra source as well as from other countries.

We kept one bottle longer show more than the rest,
Forgot it in the back of the cupboard,
And found it, tiding up, uncorked it,
And wondered at the taste of shadows in it

There are some lovely poems in here, and I particularly liked The Honey Man, Little Owls, Sloes Light and Seeing Angels. Some of my favourite poems were those touching on the natural world, especially those rooted in her home country. There were others that I liked a lot, but there were a number I found harder to fathom, but that is as much my fault as they do need to be read and read to sink in. There is some lovely prose in here and will definitely be reading more of her work. show less

There's some REALLY scary (and poetically challenging) stuff in here. But any anthology that has the balls to mix up Jack Prelutsky and Emily Dickinson is pretty cool for the boy.