Welsh writer joins eminent poets awarded Queen's Gold Medal

The honour recognises her body of work which culminated in the collection A Recipe for Water, published last year.

The Cardiff-born writer is the national poet of Wales and her work is well known to teenage readers as a selection of her poems have been set for GCSE English for a number of years.

The 73-year-old, who is married with three children, has pioneered the teaching of creative writing and co-founded Ty Newydd, the writers' centre in North Wales, in 1990.

Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy, who chaired the medal's judging panel, described Clarke as "part of the literary landscape of this country".

She added: "Take an early poem, perhaps, like Letter from a Far Country. First heard on radio and published in the early 1980s, this poem subtly and lyrically describes the everyday household responsibilities of a woman with a full, ordered, demanding life at home and a longed-for, free, dream-like life elsewhere.

"We could read it as a poem about a trapped housewife but it is so much more than that.

"It is a moving and beautiful statement about freedom and constraint. Freedom and constraint – whether writing about women, ecology, politics or the natural world – these are the hallmarks of Gillian Clarke's art."

Distinguished past recipients of the medal have included WH Auden in 1936, John Betjeman in 1960, Philip Larkin in 1965, Stevie Smith in 1969 and Ted Hughes in 1974.

Clarke will receive her honour from the Queen next year.