Randall Jarrell Poems

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Randall Jarrell
Randall Jarrell (May 6, 1914 – October 15, 1965), was a United States poet, novelist, critic, children's author and essayist. Jarrell was a native of Nashville, Tennessee and graduated from Vanderbilt University. At Vanderbilt, he was acquainted with poets of the Fugitives group. Jarrell followed critic John Crowe Ransom from Vanderbilt to Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, where Jarrell wrote a masters thesis on the poetry of Alfred Edward Housman, and roomed with poet Robert Lowell. He taught at Kenyon College, the University of Texas, the University of Illinois, Sarah Lawrence College, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 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 and 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 death of the ball turret gunner
 
 
From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.... [read poem]
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