Gillian Clarke

The National Poet of Wales since 2008, Gillian Clarke is a free-lance writer, playwright, editor, translator from Welsh and occasional broadcaster. She is President of Tŷ Newydd writers’ centre in Gwynedd, which she co-founded in 1990.
Gillian is an Honorary Fellow of Cardiff University, Cardiff Metropolitan University, Aberystwyth, Swansea and Trinity-St David’s University Colleges of the University of Wales, and in 2011 she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Literature by the University of Glamorgan, where she was part-time tutor on the M.Phil course in creative writing until 2011.

Her poetry is studied by GCSE and A Level students throughout Britain and wherever the British International English Literature syllabus is used throughout the world. She is part of the GCSE Poetry Live team. She travels extensively in Britain, and has given poetry readings in Europe, India, South America and the United States. Her work has been translated into many languages. Gillian’s commissions include radio plays, poems, songs, site-specific work with sculptors, architects and composers. She has published 10 collections of poetry, and a book of prose essays, At the Source. A new collection of poems, Ice, appears from Carcanet in October 2012.

Gillian is currently working on two new commissions. These are a site-specific piece for Snowdonia with the National Theatre of Wales, and her own 'A Child's Christmas in Wales' for the Dylan Thomas Centre, Swansea, for Dylan Thomas' centenary next year.

In 2010 she was awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry and became the second Welsh person to receive the honour. In 2011 she was made a member of the Gorsedd of Bards.