Gillian Clarke

Gillian Clarke is the National Poet of Wales and is probably the best-loved, as well as the best-known, poet in work in Wales today. Her poetry is studied in schools across the UK and abroad, and she's in constant demand as a reader and teacher. Her poems are clear, open and lyric, yet often unsettling. They are rooted in Gillian's own life, and in the nature, history and language of her country.

Gillian Clarke first burst onto the Welsh poetry scene four decades ago, as a complete unknown. At a time when few women were publishing poetry, her subject matter - babysitting, sick children, car journeys - was revolutionary. So too was her direct, conversational style. Over the following years, Gillian became a central figure in poetry, in Wales and beyond.

She was increasingly a poet of the natural world, as she uprooted from Cardiff to a cottage in rural west Wales. In this programme, Gillian Clarke reads some of her best-known work from over four decades, as we trace the course of her life through her own words.