Carol Rumens, the British poet and longtime Guardian columnist known for her Poem of the Week series, has died at the age of 81. Her family confirmed that she passed away peacefully on 25 April after being diagnosed with a brain tumour.
Rumens wrote the Guardian's Poem of the Week column from October 2007, analysing nearly 1,000 poems over two decades. Her selections ranged from household names to lesser-known writers, and she built an engaged readership who frequently responded in the comments section. Her final column was published in February 2025.
Born on 10 December 1944 in Forest Hill, south London, Rumens left a philosophy degree unfinished before earning a postgraduate diploma in writing for stage from City College Manchester. Her first collection, A Strange Girl in Bright Colours, was published in 1973. She later worked as an editor at Pick magazine and as poetry editor at Quarto and Literary Review.
Throughout her career, Rumens published over a dozen poetry collections, including Animal People, De Chirico's Threads and Blind Spots. She also wrote plays, fiction, criticism and translated Russian poetry. She taught at several universities, including the University of Hull, where she established an MA in creative writing, and Bangor University, where she was a visiting professor.
Rumens was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1984 and was twice shortlisted for the Forward poetry prize. In 2019, a collection of her Poem of the Week columns was published as Smart Devices. Reflecting on the column, she said: 'A poem isn't usually a butterfly or a mobile phone. It deserves a longer life.'
