The Silence by Gillian Clarke
POETRY BOOK SOCIETY RECOMMENDATION SPRING 2024 Penny Boxall As Audre Lorde writes ‘We

As Audre Lorde writes ‘We survived and survival breeds desire for more self’

attaining the measured extravagance of

always surprising

these poems convey what it is to be human

Snippets of Yoruba interweave with English

The Silence by Gillian Clarke<br><b>POETRY BOOK SOCIETY RECOMMENDATION SPRING 2024</b> Penny Boxall As Audre Lorde writes ‘We'The days have no names. The day they count the dead,the day they closed the doors,turned off the lights. We're still here in the silence,hearing tree talk,the wind's secrets,the company of birds.' 'The Year of the Dead' The poems in Gillian Clarke's The Silence begin during lockdown, whose silences Clarke listens so attentively that other voices emerge. As the book progresses, that silence deepens, in the poems about her mother and childhood, about