The Irish novelist Anne Enright has praised her poems for their "clean, hard-earned simplicity and a lovely sense of line.

She holds an Honours BA in English and Philosophy from Trinity College Dublin[2] and an MPhil in Writing from the University of South Wales.

[4] Clarke worked in community development, adult education and psychotherapy in Dublin for thirteen years.

Much of her work is, in the words of the British poet Carol Rumens, "rooted in the landscape of the west of Ireland and the farming context in which the lives of individual humans are played out asserts its own rhythm and narrative.

In honouring this larger context Clarke enlarges her poetic field with an unobtrusive but important ecopoetic dimension.