The title sequence of Making the Beds for the Dead charts the journey of the Foot and Mouth virus in ‘the plague year’. Come from outer space, it travels — on a fox’s paw, the beak of a kite and a crow and a buzzard — into the very heart of our lives. The poet includes personal, verses and stories from farmers in her family and neighbourhood. The open structure allows Gillian Clarke to include her seven rock poems, written for the National Botanic Garden of Wales; her poems based in archaeology; and her poems about war, and urban violence. There is an instinctive and a deliberate unity of theme and idiom in this book. The poet remains true to her landscapes and her nation. The sequence ‘The Physicians of Myddfai’, nine sonnets for Aberglasne, and much else is included in this characteristically generous and engaging volume by Wales’ best-loved poet.