Hello world!

Born in Cardiff, Wales. Poet, playwright, editor, translator (from Welsh), President of Ty Newydd, the writers´ centre in North Wales which she co-founded in 1990. Tutor on M.Phil. course in Creative Writing, the University of Glamorgan, since 1994. Freelance tutor of creative writing, primary schools to adults. Her poetry is studied by GCSE and A Level students throughout Britain. She has travelled in Europe and the United States giving poetry readings and lectures, and her work has been translated into ten languages. She has a daughter and two sons, and now lives with her husband (an architect) on a smallholding in Ceredigion, where they raise a small flock of sheep, and care for the land according to organic and conservation practice.

A Message for Teachers and students (and all poetry readers!) from Gillian Clarke

Students tell me they find this web site useful. (See the quote below). But this is just a taster. There is much, much more to be found on sheerpoetry.co.uk, a website written by me and Carol Ann Duffy, with wonderful contributions by and about Seamus Heaney, Simon Armitage, and others. Lots more will be added soon. We want to help you!  Please help us to make it the best poetry site ever, by

  • subscribing to sheerpoetry
  • telling us what you’d like to see added.

Sheerpoetry.co.uk is expensive to create and maintain, so we have to charge a small annual sum: £12 for one year – the price of a CD, or a book.

A message received in August 2006: “Hi there, I got my GCSE results today, and I’d just like to thank you for this website, which helped me greatly. The day before my English Lit. exam, I found it and it really changed and improved  my  view of how to analyse and write about poetry; but most importantly, it made me much more relaxed about approaching it and generally happier about doing the exam, as well as more informed about poetic techniques etc. Anyway, I got an A*, so I’d just like to thank you for helping me achieve that.

It makes it all worthwhile!

Gillian Clarke