Randall Jarrell

(1914 - 1965)

Born in Nashville, poet and critic Randall Jarrell taught at Sarah Lawrence College and the University of North Carolina, and he served as a poetry consultant to the Library of Congress (a role now known as Poet Laureate of the United States). Widely considered the shrewdest literary critic of his day, Jarrell published his criticism in Poetry and the Age, A Sad Heart at the Supermarket, and The Third Book of Criticism. His only novel, Pictures from an Institution, is an academic satire focusing on the oddities at a progressive women’s college.