Randall Jarrell was a native of Nashville, Tennessee and graduated from Vanderbilt University. He was married to second wife Mary von Schrader from 1952 until his death.

On October 14, 1965, while walking along a road in Chapel Hill near dusk, Jarrell was struck by a car and killed. The coroner ruled the death accidental, but Jarrell had recently been treated for mental illness after a previous suicide attempt. In 2004, the Metropolitan Nashville Historical Commission approved placement of a historical marker in his honor, to be placed at Hume-Fogg High School, which he attended.

The University of North Carolina at Greensboro has an extensive Randall Jarrell Collection which "includes over two thousand manuscript items and books relating to one of the mid-20th century's most important American poets and critics."

His reputation as a poet was not established until 1960, when his collection The Woman at the Washington Zoo was published and subsequently won a National Book Award. His final volume, The Lost World, published in 1966, cemented that reputation; many critics consider it his best work. Jarrell also published a satiric novel, Pictures from anInstitution, in 1954, (nominated for 1955 National Book Award), drawing upon his teaching experiences at Sarah Lawrence College, which served as the model for the fictional Benton College. He published several children's stories, among which The Bat-Poet, 1964 and The Animal Family, 1965 are considered prominent. He translated poems by Rainer Maria Rilke and others, a play by Anton Chekhov, and several Grimm fairy tales. He served as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress — a position today known as {Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry — from 1956 to 1958.

Author's Books