Randall Jarrell (1914-1965) was born in Nashville, Tennessee, to Owen and Anna Campbell Jarrell. Jarrell spent his early childhood years in California and in Nashville, and attended Hume-Fogg High School in Nashville as a teenager. While at Hume-Fogg, Jarrell played tennis and participated in dramatics and journalism.

In the fall of 1932, Jarrell enrolled at Vanderbilt University. While at Vanderbilt, Jarrell wrote for and eventually became editor of the Vanderbilt Masquerader, the campus humor magazine. He earned his bachelors degree after only three years by taking summer classes at George Peabody College (now Vanderbilt Peabody College). While at Vanderbilt, Jarrell studied under professors John Crowe Ransom and Robert Penn Warren, both of whom became renowned American poets.

Jarrell returned to Vanderbilt for graduate school and supplemented his income by grading papers for two of John Crowe Ransom's classes. Jarrell befriended Peter Hillsman Taylor and Robert Lowell while at Vanderbilt; both Taylor and Lowell would become acclaimed writers. Jarrell would follow Ransom to Kenyon College in 1938, then take a teaching position at the University of Texas the next year. While at the University of Texas, Jarrell met Mackie Langham, a fellow English instructor, and the two were wed in 1940.

While Jarrell published his first poems in the "May 1934" edition of The American Review, his first book of poetry, Blood for a Stranger, was not published until 1942. His second book of poetry, Little Friend, Little Friend, was published by Dial in 1945; at the time, Jarrell was serving a brief stint with the Army Air Corps. In 1946, Jarrell left the Army and accepted an invitation from The Nation editor Margaret Marshall to temporarily serve as literary editor in her place.

Jarrell relocated to New York to serve as editor of The Nation. While in New York, he taught at Sarah Lawrence College and befriended political theorist Hannah Arendt; Arendt was originally from Germany and gave Jarrell credit for teaching her how to appreciate English language poetry. After his year with The Nation was over, Jarrell accepted a teaching position at the Woman's College of the University of North Carolina in Greensboro (now the University of North Carolina - Greensboro), where Peter Hillsman Taylor was already teaching. Jarrell would remain on Woman's permanent faculty until his death.

As Jarrell's career went on, he became the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1946, and published his fourth book of poetry,The Seven-League Crutches, in 1951. Jarrell took leave from Women's College and taught at Princeton University in 1951. In 1952, Jarrell would lecture at Indiana University and the University of Illinois before returning to North Carolina. Also during the early 1950s, Jarrell and Mackie Langham separated, and Jarrell married Mary von Schrader.

In the fall of 1953, Jarrell focused on writing criticism. He published his only novel, Pictures from an Institution, in 1954. In 1956, Jarrell began a two-year stint as Poetry Consultant for the Library of Congress. During his tenure with the Library of Congress, Jarrell would write only four new poems and produce a few translations of works by Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke.

In 1958, Jarrell returned to Women's College to resume teaching. After returning, he published Woman at the Washington Zoo in 1960, this work received the National Book Award for poetry in 1961 and the University of North Carolina's Oliver Max Gardner Award in 1962. Jarrell also began writing children's books in the early 1960s, publishing The Bat-Poet in 1963 and The Animal Familyin 1965. These children's works were illustrated by Maurice Sendak.

Jarrell published his last book of poetry, The Lost World, in 1965. On October 14 of that year, Jarrell was struck by a motor vehicle on a dark road in Chapel Hill and died instantly. He is buried in Guilford College, North Carolina, not far from the home he shared with his second wife, Mary. One of his children's books,Fly By Night, was published posthumously in 1976.