Jared Carter

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Jared Carter

Born 1939 (age 68–69)
Occupation Poet
Nationality American
Literary movement Independent
Official website

Jared Carter is a contemporary American poet born on January 10, 1939, in Elwood, Indiana. He studied at Yale and at Goddard College. After military service and travel abroad, he made his home in Indianapolis, where he has lived since 1969. He worked for many years as an editor and interior designer of textbooks and scholarly works, first with the Bobbs-Merrill Company and later in association with Hackett Publishing Company.

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[edit] Work

Carter writes in free verse and in traditional forms and produces both brief lyrics and extended narratives about his native Midwest. Much of his early work is set in a fictional world called Mississinewa County—an imaginary place that includes an actual river, the Mississinewa River. In recent years, as Carter has published increasingly on the web, his poetry has ranged farther afield.

His first collection, Work, for the Night Is Coming, won the Walt Whitman Award for 1980. His second, After the Rain, was given the Poets' Prize for 1995. His fourth, Cross this Bridge at a Walk, was named “Best Poetry Book of Indiana 2007” by the Indiana State Library.

His poems have appeared in literary journals in the U.S. and abroad and in the anthologies Twentieth-Century American Poetry,[1] Contemporary American Poetry, [2] and Writing Poems. [3] He received literary fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1981 and 1991, a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1982, and the Indiana Governor’s Arts Award in 1985.

A recent poem, Prophet Township, which first appeared in the Valparaiso Poetry Review, was selected as one of the "Best of the Web" poems published online during the year 2007 and is scheduled to appear in the Dzanc Books anthology Best of the Web 2008. In 2008 his poem "Heart's Forest" in issue # 38 of Free Lunch received the Rosine Offen Memorial Award given by the Free Lunch Arts Alliance.

[edit] Excerpts

I want to know only that things gather themselves
with great patience, that they do this forever.[4]

The purpose of poetry is to tell us about life.[5]

To improvise, first let your fingers stray.
Each time you start, expect to lose your way.[6]

There's no such thing as control. There's only balance.[7]

Snow is the horse / that would never dream of running away.[8]

[edit] Bibliography

  • Time Capsule. E-book no. 26. Dayton, Washington: New Formalist Press, 2007.
  • Cross this Bridge at a Walk. Nicholasville, Kentucky: Wind Publications, 2006. ISBN 1893239462
  • Reading the Tarot: Nine Villanelles. E-book no. 17. Dayton, Washington: New Formalist Press, 2005.
  • Les Barricades Mystérieuses. Cleveland: Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 1999. ISBN 1880834405
  • After the Rain. Cleveland: Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 1993. ISBN 1880834030
  • Situation Normal. Indianapolis: Writers’ Center Press, 1991.
  • Blues Project. Indianapolis: Writers’ Center Press, 1991. ISBN 1880649276
  • The Shriving. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: Duende Press, 1990.
  • Millennial Harbinger. Philadelphia: Slash & Burn Press, 1986. ISBN 093834501X
  • Pincushion’s Strawberry. Cleveland: Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 1984. ISBN 0914946439
  • Fugue State. Daleville, Indiana: Barnwood Press, 1984. ISBN 0935306161
  • Work, for the Night Is Coming. New York: Macmillan, 1981. ISBN 1880834200
  • Early Warning. Daleville, Indiana: Barnwood Press, 1979.

[edit] Relevant studies

  • Deines, Timothy J. “The Gleaning: Regionalism, Form, and Theme in the Poetry of Jared Carter.” Master’s thesis, Cleveland State University, 1998.
  • “Jared Carter.” Contemporary Authors . Vol. 145, pp. 75-76. Detroit: Gale Research, 1995.
  • Ponick, T. L., and Ponick, F. S. “Jared Carter.” Dictionary of Literary Biography. Vol. 282, pp. 31-40. Detroit: Gale Research, 2003.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003. Compiled by Dana Gioia, David Mason, and Meg Schoerke. ISBN 0072400196 ISBN 9780072400199.
  2. ^ New York: Penguin Academics Series, 2005. Compiled by R. S. Gwynn and April Lindner. ISBN 0321182820 ISBN 9780321182821.
  3. ^ New York: Longman, 2004. Compiled by Michelle Boisseau and Robert Wallace. ISBN 0321094239 ISBN 9780321094230.
  4. ^ "Geodes," lines 13-14, p. 3, in Work, for the Night Is Coming.
  5. ^ "The Purpose of Poetry," line 30, p. 24, in After the Rain.
  6. ^ " Improvisation," lines 18-19, p. 1, in Les Barricades Mystérieuses.
  7. ^ "Lost Bridge," line 28, p. 103, in Cross this Bridge at a Walk.
  8. ^ "Snow," lines 20-21.

[edit] External links