Leonard Clark

Who was Leonard Clark?

Leonard Clark was an English poet and anthologist. He was born and brought up in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, and the early experience of growing up in an essentially rural setting influenced both his prose and his poetry. He worked as a teacher and school inspector

His best-known anthology is All Things New, a collection of poems for children; it includes a short essay before each poem, explaining it. Other books of poetry include The Hearing Heart, Singing in the Streets: poems for Christmas. Prose works include A Fool in the Forest and Green Wood: Tales of a Gloucestershire Childhood, both of which comprise series of descriptions of characters and events from Leonard Clark's childhood.

Following The Sun, 1967, was a compilation of schoolchildren's poems selected by Clark from entries to a competition in the Sun newspaper.