Carol Rumens

Standard Name: Rumens, Carol
Birth Name: Carol-Ann Lumley
Self-constructed Name: Carol Rumens
Married Name: Carol Rumens
CR is a leading poet of the later twentieth century and beyond. As well as a dozen poetry volumes she has published a novel, short stories, plays, translations, and reviews of literature and music. She has also edited poems and anthologies. Her poems deal often with issues of place, belonging, and displacement, with natural and human-made environments both beautiful and degraded, with women's experience of every kind (especially the insouciant courage of young women confronting a dangerous and unfair world), and with a personal past set against a politically threatened future.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Anthologization Fleur Adcock
From early in her career FA was an insightful critic as well as a poet, and her judgements were already informed by a matured understanding of the shaping force of gender. Dannie Abse included her...
Textual Production Fleur Adcock
She appeared with six other poets in Portfolio no. 3 from London's Steam Press in 1979 (an actual portfolio of separate leaves, published in fifty signed and numbered copies, in a black cover with illustrations...
Literary responses Patricia Beer
The review in the New Statesman continued a recent critical note by applying to PB 's techniques two epithets which would hardly have been chosen for a male poet: unflappable and no-nonsense.
Sherry, Vincent B., editor. Dictionary of Literary Biography 40. Gale Research.
27
Most...
Literary responses Patricia Beer
Responses to PB 's poetry have varied widely, even among her fellow poets. Jeni Couzyn has charged her with the crime of not rocking the boat, of making herself a favourite . . . for...
Literary responses Catherine Byron
Reviewer Carol Rumens , writing in Poetry Review, admired the direct and unaffected tone of the final section
Rumens, Carol. “Tyros and Tested: Frances Horovitz, Catherine Byron, Penelope Shuttle, Sylvia Kantaris, Alan Moore, R. A. Maitre, Adrienne Rich”. Poetry Review, Vol.
76
, No. 4, Poetry Society, pp. 55-7.
56
and praised CB for her thick, gritty, onomatopoeic textures of language. Rumens concluded that this...
Intertextuality and Influence Catherine Byron
Reflections on her own life are intertwined throughout CB 's journey, as she writes on her childhood experience of Catholicism, and her roles as mother, wife, lover, and Irish woman writer.
Byron, Catherine. Out of Step. Loxwood Stoneleigh.
passim
She deals trenchantly...
Textual Production Catherine Byron
She takes the title for this essay from Carol Rumens 's poem The Most Difficult Door (in Selected Poems, 1987), and begins with two lines from it: Be wary, but don't fear the darkening...
Literary responses Gillian Clarke
A felllow-poet, Carol Rumens , reviewing this volume, found the poems upbeat and relaxed if sometimes low-pressured, with plenty of celebration as well as ecological urgency.She admired the use of aural effects (day...
Anthologization Gillian Clarke
GC 's work has appeared in various other anthologies, including Six Women Poets, edited by Judith Kinsman (along with Fleur Adcock , Selima Hill , Liz Lochhead , Grace Nichols , and Carol Rumens
Reception Gillian Clarke
In 2008 GC was appointed National Poet of Wales.
“Gillian Clarke”. Yr Academi Gymreig: The Welsh Academy: hybu llên: literature promotion.
This post (though not connected like the British laureateship with the monarchy or government) has high expectations: an ability to . . . write well and...
Literary responses Nancy Cunard
Carol Rumens has admired the sweeping free verse and direct address of her Spanish Civil War poems.
Rumens, Carol. “Poem of the week: In the Studio by Nancy Cunard”. theguardian.com.
Textual Features Nancy Cunard
Making their first appearance in print are poems written for Valentine Ackland and for Nina Hamnett , and NC 's elegy for Eliot , written a few weeks after his death and only two months...
Literary responses Eva Figes
This novel was praised in the Times as brilliant, as novel-writing of the highest technical excellence, but also poignant and funny, tender and cruel, and full of insight into the human condition.
“The Times Digital Archive 1785-2007”. Thompson Gale: The Times Digital Archive.
(22 January 1981) 12
Textual Features Germaine Greer
Women are a minority here, but well represented: Fleur Adcock , Anna Letitia Barbauld , Amy Clampitt , Olive Custance (Lady Alfred Douglas) , Emily Dickinson , Freda Downie , U. A. Fanthorpe , Vicki Feaver
Textual Production Selima Hill
In 1998 SH 's work appeared in volume two of Bloodaxe 's Poetry Quartets series of poetry readings on cassette tapes, along with Fleur Adcock , Carol Ann Duffy , and Carol Rumens .
OCLC WorldCat. http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/content/worldcat/. Accessed 1999.

Timeline

1 January 1916: The British edition of Vogue (an American...

Building item

1 January 1916

The British edition of Vogue (an American fashion magazine) began publishing from Condé Nast in Hanover Square, London.

26 November 1998: Poems written, read, and discussed by Kathleen...

Women writers item

26 November 1998

Poems written, read, and discussed by Kathleen Jamie , Jackie Kay , and two male poets were issued as number one in the audio-cassette series Poetry Quartets.

10 September 2003: Guardian Unlimited Books named as Site of...

Writing climate item

10 September 2003

Guardian Unlimited Books named as Site of the Week a website entitled Poetry Landmarks of Britain: a map of poetic assocations plotted on an interactive map of Britain, searchable by region or category.

26 September 2009: The Guardian newspaper carried a number of...

Building item

26 September 2009

The Guardian newspaper carried a number of poems and short prose pieces commissioned in support of the 10:10 initiative to reduce carbon emissions.

Texts

Rumens, Carol. “A huff of rain”. The Guardian.
Rumens, Carol. A Necklace of Mirrors. Ulsterman, 1978.
Rumens, Carol. A Strange Girl in Bright Colours. Quartet, 1973.
Rumens, Carol. Animal People. Seren, 2016.
Rumens, Carol. Best China Sky. Bloodaxe Books, 1995.
Rumens, Carol. Blind Spots. Seren, 2008.
Rumens, Carol. De Chirico’s Threads. Seren, 2010.
Rumens, Carol. Direct Dialling. Chatto and Windus, 1985.
Adcock, Fleur et al. Fleur Adcock, Carol Ann Duffy, Selima Hill, Carol Rumens. British Council; Bloodaxe Books.
Rumens, Carol. From Berlin to Heaven. Chatto and Windus, 1989.
Rumens, Carol. Hex. Bloodaxe Books, 2002.
Rumens, Carol. Holding Pattern. Blackstaff Press, 1998.
Rumens, Carol, editor. Making for the Open. Chatto and Windus, 1985.
Rumens, Carol. Plato Park. Chatto and Windus, 1987.
Rumens, Carol. “Poem of the week: In the Studio by Nancy Cunard”. theguardian.com.
Rumens, Carol. “Poem of the week: The Hinds by Kathleen Jamie”. theguardian.com.
Rumens, Carol. Poems 1968-2004. Bloodaxe Books, 2004.
Rumens, Carol. “Poetry’s Disunited Kingdom”. London Library Magazine, No. 6, pp. 12-15.
Rumens, Carol. Selected Poems. Chatto and Windus, 1987.
Rumens, Carol. Self into Song. Bloodaxe Books, 2007.
Rumens, Carol. The Greening of the Snow Beach. Bloodaxe Books, 1988.
Rumens, Carol, and Viv Quillin. The Miracle Diet. Bloodaxe Books, 1997.
Rumens, Carol. Thinking of Skins. Bloodaxe Books, 1993.
Rumens, Carol. “Tyros and Tested: Frances Horovitz, Catherine Byron, Penelope Shuttle, Sylvia Kantaris, Alan Moore, R. A. Maitre, Adrienne Rich”. Poetry Review, Vol.
76
, No. 4, Poetry Society, pp. 55-7.