Literary Birthday – 8 June – Gillian Clarke

Happy Birthday, Gillian Clarke, born 8 June 1937.

Five Quotes

  1. There’s a side to all writers that loves nothing better than a book, a big chair, a window.
  2. Poetry is a hook for memory.
  3. Why does a good poem catch the heart? Because the observation rings true, the words are right, and the syntax carries home subject, idea, image and narrative in a perfect cadenza.
  4. There is no such thing as a silent poem.
  5. Language is not frozen. It’s alive and it changes and grows with every generation of readers and writers and speakers. A poem is not carved in stone. It speaks. We listen. We respond.

Gillian Clarke is a Welsh poet, playwright, editor, broadcaster, lecturer, and translator. Her last collection, Ice, was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Award 2012. Her latest work is Zoology.

Photograph: Author’s Website via Author: Photographer Marion Delyth

by Amanda Patterson

Please click here for our Literary Birthday Calendar

Posted on: 7th June 2017
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