It is an exploration of the ten-year period of energetic poetic production in Belfast, Northern Ireland, driven by young poets such as Paul Muldoon, Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon, Michael Longley, and James Simmons.
Her second book, The Grief of Influence, is an analytical study of the creative work, tumultuous marriage, and artistic rivalry of poets Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, published by Oxford University Press in 2011.
In a review in The New York Times, Daphne Merkin writes, "This vast new biography sets out to recover Plath from her melodramatic legacy.
Her life story—from her institutionalizations to her tempestuous marriage to Ted Hughes—has often been reduced to that of a depressive, literary femme fatale, which Clark believes ignores the poet's true genius".
[4]In a review for the Los Angeles Times, Jessica Ferri called the book "a joyful affirmation for Plath fanatics and a legitimization of her legacy".