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Carol Rumens confronts the personal with the political in poems which are remarkable for their imaginative daring and their engagement with other lives. Often set against the background of Eastern Europe, Russia or her present home in Northern Ireland, they are filled with a powerful sense of loss and exile. She draws on a wide variety of characters and voices to dramatise the realities of suffering and persecution, or to write direct, honest accounts of love, separation, death and displacement. Thinking of Skins includes poems from several books Carol Rumens has published during the past 20 years, as well as a large selection of new work. It draws on collections now regarded as landmarks in modern poetry, such as Unplayed Music (1981), Star Whisper (1983), Direct Dialling (1985) and From Berlin to Heaven (1989).