...Dear husbands, fathers, forefathers,
this is my apologia, my
letter home from the future,
my bottle in the sea which might
take a generation to arrive.

                    from 'Letter from a Far Country'

Gillian Clarke's poems are letters from the far countries of personal and ancestral memories, of places and moments of insight. Her acclaimed title poem explores the buried histories of women's lives, the enduring responsibilities that link generations and ensure the continuance of language and traditions. Rooted in rural Wales, Letter from a Far Country celebrates the sources of strength and continuity that bind people to landscape and community.

'Clarke's poetry...gives voice to the unexpressed emotions and experiences of women over the centuries...this, together with the way in which her Welshness is such an integral part of her sensibility and her poetry helps to make Gillian Clarke one of our most important contemporary writers' - New Welsh Review

'Clarke's work is both personal and archetypal, built out of language as concrete as it is musical.' - Anne Stevenson, Times Literary Supplement

'Clarke...reminds us that simply expressed facts can sometimes shine more memorably than fireworks.' - Carol Rumens, The Independent

Letter from a Far Country
Miracle on St. David’s Day
Insomnia
Chalk Pebble
Sunday
East Moors
Scything
Bluetit and Wren
Ll^yr
Blodeuwedd
Siege
Cardiff Elms
The Water Diviner
Hay-Making
Harvest
Friesian Bull
Jac Codi Baw
Taid’s Funeral
White Roses
Pendzhikent
Login
Blodeuyn
Death of a Cat
Sheila na Gig at Kilpeck
Plums
Balsam
Buzzard
Ram
From Clarence Bridge, Newport
Heron at Port Talbot
Mrs Frost
Ice Queen
Suicide on Pentwyn Bridge
Welsh Blacks
On Rhiwbina Hill
Shadows in Llanbadarn
A Journal from France:

September 9th
The Village
La Cirque de Paris
Seamstress at St. Léon
Kingfishers at Condat
Rouffignac
Font de Gaume
Les Combarelles
‘Summer’s going quickly now’

Notes