I never feared the critic's pen To live by my renown.
I found the poems in the fields And only wrote them down.
The poet John Clare found inspiration for many of his poems in the woods and fields near his Northamptonshire home. In this programme naturalist John Barrett looks at some of Clare's poetry and prose, and discovers that his observations of animals and birds and their behaviour were quite remarkable for a man who had no guidebooks, little education and no binoculars. Poems read by ROBIN HOLMES Producer SUE COATES