National Poetry Month: Carol Rumens

April is National Potry Month in the United States, and I thought I would join in the celebrations and share with you some of my favourite poems this month.

Carol Rumens

Photo: The Guardian

Carol Rumens is the author of 14 collections of poems, as well as occasional fiction, drama and translation. She has received the Cholmondeley Award and the Prudence Farmer Prize, and was joint recipient of an Alice Hunt Bartlett Award. Her most recent publication is the prose book, Self into Song, based on three poetry lectures delivered in the Bloodaxe-Newcastle University Lecture Series. She is currently professor in creative writing at the University of Wales, Bangor, and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Her latest collection is De Chirico's Threads, published by Seren Books. (Source: The Guardian)

Carol also writes a weekly column in The Guardian. For more information about Carol, visit her website.

My favourite poem by Carol Rumens remains the first one of hers that I read. I was visiting London in 2004, and they were running a campaign on the tube called "Poems on the Underground". The selection of poems made boring tube rides more enjoyable, and this one struck a chord with me.

Once After Pushkin

I loved you once. D’you hear a small ‘I love you’
Each time we’re forced to meet? Don’t groan, don’t hide!

A damaged tree can live without a bud:

No one need break the branches and uncover

The green that should have danced, dying inside.

I loved you, knowing I’d never be your lover.

And now? I wish you summers of leaf-shine

And leaf-shade, and a face in dreams above you,

As tender and as innocent as mine.

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