Mark Jarman

Mark Jarman in 2010. Photo by Zoe Jarman. Courtesy Wikipedia.

Mark Foster Jarman (born June 5, 1952) is an American poet and academic. He is often identified with the New Narrative branch of the New Formalism.

Life

Youth

Jarman was born in Mount Sterling, Kentucky, where his father, Dr. Donald R. Jarman, was training as a minister at the Lexington Theological Seminary. His parents, both Californians, moved back to California in 1954 and settled in Santa Maria, where his father served First Christian Church.

In 1958, responding to a call from his denomination, Mark’s father moved his wife Bo Dee, his son, and daughter Katie, to Scotland to serve a small church in Kirkcaldy, Fife, a linoleum factory town on the Firth of Forth across from Edinburgh. The 3 years he spent there were formative for the poet. The family returned to California in 1961, where his father served South Bay Christian Church in Redondo Beach and his sister Luanne was born.

In 1970, Jarman entered the University of California at Santa Cruz and earned a B.A with highest honors in English literature in 1974. There he met his wife, soprano Amy Jarman, and his friend and long-time collaborator, Robert McDowell. While at U.C.S.C., he studied with the poet and editor George Hitchcock and the short story writer and poet Raymond Carver.

In 1974, Jarman entered the Iowa Writers' Workshop where he earned an M.F.A. in poetry in 1976. At Iowa he studied with Donald Justice, Charles Wright, Stanley Plumly, and Sandra McPherson. His classmates included poets Chase Twichell, Brenda Hillman, James Galvin, and Rita Dove.

Career

In 1976, Jarman was hired to teach creative writing at Indiana State University in Evansville. In 1978, a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts allowed him to quit his job and live in Italy where Amy studied singing at the University of Perugia.

Returning to California in 1979, Jarman was hired as a visiting writer at the University of California at Irvine. Mark and Amy’s daughter Claire was born in Mission Viejo in 1980. That same year, Jarman took a position teaching creative writing at Murray State University in Kentucky. Two years later the couple’s second child, Zoë, was born in Murray. In 1983, he left Murray State to teach at Vanderbilt University, where he has been since. Since 2007, Jarman has been Centennial Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing] at Vanderbilt

He was co-editor with Robert McDowell of The Reaper throughout the 1980s. He is the author of ten books of poetry, two books of essays, and a book of essays co-authored with Robert McDowell. He co-edited the anthology Rebel Angels: 25 Poets of the New Formalism with David Mason.

Writing

Jarman's early poetry reflects the influence of living by the Pacific and the North Sea at important times in his life, along with growing up in a strongly religious family. As he has matured, his poetry has remained invested in family experience, a sense of place, and the presence of God in everyday life. Though he is associated with the New Formalism, his poetry has always ranged widely in form and style, from narrative to lyric, from free to formal verse to prose poetry.

Recognition

Jarman's awards for poetry include a Joseph Henry Jackson Award, 3 grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. His book The Black Riviera won the 1991 Poets' Prize. Questions for Ecclesiastes was a finalist for the 1997 National Book Critics Circle Award in poetry, and won the 1998 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets and The Nation magazine.[1]

Awards

• Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize of the Academy of American Poets, 1998
• Finalist, National Book Critics Circle Award, 1997, for poetry
• National Endowment for the Arts grant, 1992, for poetry
• The Poets’ Prize, 1991
• Guggenheim Fellow (Poetry), 1991–92
• Robert Frost Fellowship in poetry, The Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, 1985
• Crazyhorse prize for poetry published in the journal during the past year, 1985
• National Endowment for the Arts Grant, 1984, for poetry
• Duncan Lawrie Prize, Sotheby’s International Poetry Competition, 1982
• National Endowment for the Arts Grant, 1977, for poetry
• Academy of American Poets Prize, 1975, The University of Iowa
• The Joseph Henry Jackson Award, 1974, from the San Francisco Foundation, for a manuscript of poetry

Publications

Poetry

• Tonight Is the Night of the Prom (chapbook). Pittsburgh, PA: Three Rivers Press, 1974.
• North Sea. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 1978.
• The Rote Walker. Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1981.
• Far and Away. Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Mellon University Press, 1985.
• The Black Riviera. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1990.
• Iris. Brownsville, OR: Story Line Press, 1992.
• Questions for Ecclesiastes. Brownsviell, OR: Story Line Press, 1997.
• Unholy Sonnets: Poems. Brownsville, OR: Story Line Press, 2000.
• To the Green Man. Louisville, KY: Sarabande Books, 2004.
• Epistles. Louisville, KY: Sarabande Books, 2007.
• Bone Fires: New and selected poems. Louisville, KY: Sarabande Books, 2011.

Non-fiction

• The Reaper essays. (with Robert McDowell). Brownsville, OR: Story Line Press, 1996.
• The Secret of Poetry: Essays. Brownsville, OR: Story Line Press, 2001.
• Body and Soul: Essays on poetry. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2002.

Edited

• Rebel Angels: Twenty-five poets of the New Formalism. (edited with David Mason). Brownsville, OR: Story Line Press, 1996.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the Poetry Foundation.

Audio / video

Poetry@Tech Mark Jarman

• Mark Jarman (CD). Kansas City, MO: University of Missouri-Kansas City, [1997?]
• Mark Jarmon [sic] (cassette). Kansas City, MO : New Letters on the Air, [1998?]

Except where noted, discographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• New Formalists
• List of U.S. poets

References

• Richard Flynn, Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 120: American poets since World War II, 3rd series (edited by R.S. Gwynn. Gale Research, 1992.
• Jeff Newberry, "Mark Jarman," Facts on File Companion to 20th Century American Poetry (edited by Burt Kimmelman). Facts on File, 2005.

External links

Poems

• "Unholy Sonnets" at the Cortland Review (4 sonnets)
• Mark Jarman profile & 9 poems at the Academy of American Poets
• Mark Jarman b. 1952 at the Poetry Foundation
• Mark Jarman at PoemHunter (13 poems)

Audio / video

• Mark Jarman at YouTube

Books

• Mark Jarman at Amazon.com

About

• Mark Jarman at Vanderbilt University
• Mark Jarman at Tweetspeak

Etc.

• Poet of the Month (website curated by Mark Jarman, 1997–2007)