Carol Rumens was born in Forest Hill, South London, in 1944. She began writing music reviews for the local press when she was sixteen. She has held various literary posts, including the Northern Art Fellowship, and poetry residencies located at Queen's University Belfast, University College Cork, Stockholm University and the Harvard Centre for Hellenic Studies, Nafplio. Rumens has published twenty poetry collections, the latest of which is The Mixed Urn (Sheep Meadow Press, 2019). She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Bangor, Gwynedd.