Carcanet Press - Letter from a Far Country

Description
Excerpt
Author
Contents
Awards
Reviews
Audio

...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.

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

Born in Cardiff, Gillian Clarke is a poet, playwright, editor, broadcaster, lecturer and translator (from Welsh). She edited the Anglo-Welsh Review from 1975 to 1984, and has taught creative writing in primary and secondary schools and at university level. She is president of Ty Newydd, the writers' centre in North Wales ... read more

Awards won by Gillian Clarke Commended, 2024 A Poetry Book Society Spring Recommendation
(The Silence) Short-listed, 2022 The Wales Book of the Year
(Roots Home) Long-listed, 2020 The Laurel Prize for Ecopoetry (Zoology) Winner, 2011 Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry.
Winner, 2012 Wilfred Owen Award

Praise for Gillian Clarke 'This is a collection which deserves the readerâs full attention. The poems may at times prove uneasy, they will make us think and maybe demand reading again, and again. But they will remain with us.'

James Caruth, The North
'Clarke's skill lies in using simple language to record moments of great beauty, no less lovely for sometimes being familiar. She reminds us of the comfort to be drawn from paying attention to nature'

Rishi Dastidar, The Guardian

'Rich with repetition and punctuated by potent page breaks, this extraordinarily incisive collection creates space to reflect upon how the pandemic has transformed us and what, in the face of loss and quiet, our hearts have learned.'

Jo Clement, The Poetry Society Bulletin

'The Silence is not concerned only with the pandemic. Gillian Clarke's writing frequently offsets her awareness of the naturalness and depth of her roots in rural Wales with the sense of strangeness which comes from having English as her "mother-tongue". These meditations are delicately handled in the collection, and particularly striking in the context of environmental catastrophe. What now threatens the landscape which Clarke has farmed and nurtured, in life as in verse, are shadows which roll across the globe, turning, for many people, the possibility of belonging anywhere into wishful thinking. The Silence is full of poems which remind us of the importance of place, and the demand of its words and silences to be listened to.'

Carol Rumens, The Guardian Poem of the Week

'There is a numinous quality to this book, a kind of spiritual attention which reveals, by silence and contemplation, the wondrous.'

Stephen Sexton, Irish Times

'This tug between the factual and the more mystical world beyond is at the heart of the collection. Science can describe the Land but not how love of particular places works within the human spirit...a richly varied and substantial collection'

D A Prince, the North

'Clarke has a direct line to the natural world. She paints the Welsh landscape without idealising or romanticising, and in the process shows that nature doesn't need to be elevated to inspire a quiet awe.'
Financial Times Best Books of 2017

'Always openings. Perceptions never alien to the new. No borders enclose her ideas. They are allowed to roam in her meticulous phrasing. And yet her greatest strength is, paradoxically, her moments of both closure and trapped moments of insight delivered to us grateful readers with faithful intelligence.'
Herald Scotland

'Clarke is a singer among poets, a celebrant of landscape, trees, insects, dead ewes, a writer whose rhythms and vocabulary seem tenaciously rooted in the traditions of the place of their origin.'
The Tablet 'Gillian Clarke's outer and inner landscapes are the sources from which her poetry draws its strengths.'
Carol Ann Duffy, Guardian
'Gillian Clarke's [poems] ring with lucidity and power... Clarke's work is both personal and archetypal, built out of language as concrete as it is musical.'
Anne Stevenson, Times Literary Supplement 'In Ice Gillian Clarke explores memory and identity through a series of winter landscapes.'
Adam Newey, The Guardian, 1st December 2012
'Clarke's mellifluous new collection [A Recipe for Water] is her first since her appointment as Wales's national poet in 2008. The drop of water on the tongue, she tells us, 'was the first word in the world', and it's through water that these poems give up their stories: history is written into the Arctic's ice; myths well up from river sources; the currents on the ocean wash culture and heritage onto our shores. Watery collections have poured forth from the pens of poets from Sean O'Brien to Maura Dooley in recent years; anticipation is high for Clarke's contribution to the pool'.
Sarah Crown, the Guardian, 3 January 2009

An Evening with Gillian Clarke: Part 1 of 3 - Oswestry Festival of the Word 2012 (38:15 mins) An Evening with Gillian Clarke: Part 2 of 3 - Oswestry Festival of the Word 2012 (28:29 mins) An Evening with Gillian Clarke: Part 3 of 3 (credits) - Oswestry Festival of the Word 2012 (5:25 mins)

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Letter from a Far Country (2e) Gillian Clarke Categories: 20th Century, Welsh, Women Imprint: Carcanet Poetry Edition: 2nd Publisher: Carcanet Press Available as: Description Excerpt Author Contents Awards Reviews Audio ...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. 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 Born in Cardiff, Gillian Clarke is a poet, playwright, editor, broadcaster, lecturer and translator (from Welsh). She edited the Anglo-Welsh Review from 1975 to 1984, and has taught creative writing in primary and secondary schools and at university level. She is president of Ty Newydd, the writers' centre in North Wales ... read more Awards won by Gillian Clarke Commended, 2024 A Poetry Book Society Spring Recommendation (The Silence) Short-listed, 2022 The Wales Book of the Year (Roots Home) Long-listed, 2020 The Laurel Prize for Ecopoetry (Zoology) Winner, 2011 Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. Winner, 2012 Wilfred Owen Award Praise for Gillian Clarke 'This is a collection which deserves the readerâs full attention. The poems may at times prove uneasy, they will make us think and maybe demand reading again, and again. But they will remain with us.' James Caruth, The North 'Clarke's skill lies in using simple language to record moments of great beauty, no less lovely for sometimes being familiar. She reminds us of the comfort to be drawn from paying attention to nature' Rishi Dastidar, The Guardian 'Rich with repetition and punctuated by potent page breaks, this extraordinarily incisive collection creates space to reflect upon how the pandemic has transformed us and what, in the face of loss and quiet, our hearts have learned.' Jo Clement, The Poetry Society Bulletin 'The Silence is not concerned only with the pandemic. Gillian Clarke's writing frequently offsets her awareness of the naturalness and depth of her roots in rural Wales with the sense of strangeness which comes from having English as her "mother-tongue". These meditations are delicately handled in the collection, and particularly striking in the context of environmental catastrophe. What now threatens the landscape which Clarke has farmed and nurtured, in life as in verse, are shadows which roll across the globe, turning, for many people, the possibility of belonging anywhere into wishful thinking. The Silence is full of poems which remind us of the importance of place, and the demand of its words and silences to be listened to.' *Carol Rumens, The Guardian* Poem of the Week** 'There is a numinous quality to this book, a kind of spiritual attention which reveals, by silence and contemplation, the wondrous.' Stephen Sexton, Irish Times 'This tug between the factual and the more mystical world beyond is at the heart of the collection. Science can describe the Land but not how love of particular places works within the human spirit...a richly varied and substantial collection' D A Prince, the North 'Clarke has a direct line to the natural world. She paints the Welsh landscape without idealising or romanticising, and in the process shows that nature doesn't need to be elevated to inspire a quiet awe.' Financial Times Best Books of 2017 'Always openings. Perceptions never alien to the new. No borders enclose her ideas. They are allowed to roam in her meticulous phrasing. And yet her greatest strength is, paradoxically, her moments of both closure and trapped moments of insight delivered to us grateful readers with faithful intelligence.' Herald Scotland 'Clarke is a singer among poets, a celebrant of landscape, trees, insects, dead ewes, a writer whose rhythms and vocabulary seem tenaciously rooted in the traditions of the place of their origin.' The Tablet 'Gillian Clarke's outer and inner landscapes are the sources from which her poetry draws its strengths.' Carol Ann Duffy, Guardian 'Gillian Clarke's [poems] ring with lucidity and power... Clarke's work is both personal and archetypal, built out of language as concrete as it is musical.' Anne Stevenson, Times Literary Supplement 'In Ice Gillian Clarke explores memory and identity through a series of winter landscapes.' *Adam Newey, The Guardian, 1st December 2012* 'Clarke's mellifluous new collection [A Recipe for Water] is her first since her appointment as Wales's national poet in 2008. The drop of water on the tongue, she tells us, 'was the first word in the world', and it's through water that these poems give up their stories: history is written into the Arctic's ice; myths well up from river sources; the currents on the ocean wash culture and heritage onto our shores. Watery collections have poured forth from the pens of poets from Sean O'Brien to Maura Dooley in recent years; anticipation is high for Clarke's contribution to the pool'. Sarah Crown, the Guardian, 3 January 2009 An Evening with Gillian Clarke: Part 1 of 3 - Oswestry Festival of the Word 2012 (38:15 mins) An Evening with Gillian Clarke: Part 2 of 3 - Oswestry Festival of the Word 2012 (28:29 mins) An Evening with Gillian Clarke: Part 3 of 3 (credits) - Oswestry Festival of the Word 2012 (5:25 mins) You might also be interested in: Collected Poems Lynette Roberts, Edited by Patrick McGuinness	Share this... 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Letter from a Far Country (2e)

Gillian Clarke