Beyond the Gate is Clare’s third full collection of poetry, published by Worple Press in June 2023.
Cover image by Michaela Ridgway
Order ‘Beyond the Gate from Worple Press
In Beyond the Gate we find a poet questioning the most poignant moments in a life. Gently shifting between the intimacy of the domestic space and a deep connection with the natural world, Best shows us beauty laced with danger, darkness, flashes of fear. This exploration of love and loss considers how we hold and carry our memories, how far ahead we dare to look.
Rebecca Goss
Beyond the Gate is rooted in women’s bodies and nature: a woman’s right to walk through streets and forests, through her own story. Clare Best’s lyrical eye (and I) addresses celebration, threat, time and mortality through the prisms of water, deer, a heron, a decaying lemon, a car accident, motherhood. Best plays compelling, original games with form. Her voice is fired by precision and observation, seared with a questioning clarity and wit. With every sense attuned to ‘the settle of shingle almost audible’ Clare Best’s poems sing into ‘uninterruptible air.’
Robert Hamberger
Reviews of Beyond the Gate:
Charlotte Gann in The Friday Poem
Audio discussion with Helena Nelson about some of the poems in Beyond the Gate:
An informal discussion between Clare Best, poet and author of ‘Beyond the Gate’ (Worple Press, 2023) and Helena Nelson of HappenStance Press, with readings of several poems from ‘Beyond the Gate’. Recorded on 26 October 2023.
NB Some of the poems, and parts of the discussion, directly address the subject of elective termination of pregnancy.
Clare Best 