The Voice of the Poet: Randall Jarrell

The Voice of the Poet

by Randall Jarrell (Reader)

Each audio production is accompanied by a book containing the text of the poems and a commentary by J.D. McClatchy.

Randall Jarrell (1914-1965) a Tennessee native, earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Vanderbilt University. His first book of poetry, Blood for a Stranger, was published in 1942, the same year he enlisted in the army. Jarrell’s reputation as a poet was established in 1945, with his second book, Little Friend, Little Friend, which bitterly documents the intense fears and moral struggles of a young soldier. He is highly regarded as a peerless literary essayist and is considered the most astute poetry critic of his generation. Jarrell was struck by a car and killed at the age of 50, in a death that may or may not have been a suicide.

Genres: Poetry

64 pages, Audio CD

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Poems, published in collections such as Little Friend, Little Friend (1945), of American poet and critic Randall Jarrell concern war, loneliness, and art.

He wrote eight books of poetry, five anthologies, a novel, Pictures from an Institution . Maurice Sendak illustrated his four books for children, and he translated Faust: Part I and The Three Sisters , which the studio of actors performed on Broadway; he also translated two other works. He received the National Book Award for poetry in 1960, served as poet laureate at the Library of Congress in 1957 and 1958, and taught for many years at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. He joined as a member of the American institute of arts and letters.

Reviews

[Jimmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jarrell uses an emotional poetry voice when he reads and breaks up sentences into phrases.

Here is his most famous poem and other examples:

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
BY RANDALL JARRELL

From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.


Here is a recording of him reading live:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIoyc...

This is a great clip, W D Snodgrass speaking about being tutored by Jarrell:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mApVu...

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great poems, though the audio recordings are of variable quality and the poet's voice not always what was expected.

[Melody · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lovely, heartbreaking, exquisite. I am, as I always am after Jarrell, reeling and half-blind.

"If just living can do this,
Living is more dangerous than anything."

and, of course:

"That the boy putting groceries in my car

see me. It bewilders me he doesn't see me.
For so many years
I was good enough to eat: the world looked at me
And its mouth watered. How often they have undressed me,
The eyes of strangers!"