Gillian Clarke

We study Gillian Clarke's poems in year 11. Take a look at her website, and the poem, October, which you can find in the section for students. I love the way she describes the trees, as they "tremble gradually to gold".

The alliteration makes the words gradually and gold stick in the mind, and the idea of nature transforming itself into a precious metal, with a gentle, minimal, possibly fearful motion is attractive to me.

I wonder why she used the word tremble, rather than shiver. Maybe the word tremble suggests fear, and the death of her friend did panic her a little.

Certainly, it makes her want to get a lot of writing done, and she does refer to "panic" later, which I associate with the idea that she wants to write everything she needs to write as a poet before she has to leave.

I feel a bit that way myself, having spent the last three years spending time on learning new things about teaching, and working in classrooms instead of doing any writing of my own.....

There is always a choice to be made when one is interested in a lot of things. I think I'm making the right choices - hope you do the same!

If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is a compromise.
Robert Fritz

This Room

Seems to me that Dharker wrote this poem when she came to a big change in her life, and one which made her feel excited, not to say ecstatic.
I love the way she uses alliteration - all those "c" words, like crack, crash, clang, crowd, clouds to give the impression of noise and something breaking. It reminds me of Blessing - which also
uses onomatopoeia to create excitement and a mood of celebration.
I've found a few sites which analyse the poem in detail (maybe a bit more detail than I needed!)