Jared Carter

Jared Carter was born in Elwood, Indiana, in 1939, and studied at Yale University and Goddard College. Carter worked as a newspaper reporter for a short while before serving in the military. After his service, Carter traveled abroad before settling in Indianapolis, where he began working in textbook publishing.

In 1980, at the age of forty-one, Carter won the Walt Whitman Award for his first collection of poems, Work, for the Night Is Coming (Macmillan, 1981), selected by Galway Kinnell. Since then he has authored several other poetry collections: Darkened Rooms of Summer (University of Nebraska Press, 2014), A Dance in the Street (Wind Publications, 2012), Cross This Bridge at a Walk (Wind Publications, 2006), Les Barricades Mystérieuses (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 1999), and After the Rain (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 1993).

In his introduction to Darkened Rooms of Summer, Ted Kooser writes, “This poet can employ the most difficult of literary forms with such remarkable ease and grace that you won’t even notice the scaffolding. He can tell a compelling story on the wings of authentic speech. … He has been called a ‘preservationist poet’ because he wants to preserve what he knows and loves, and he does that for us in an unforgettable, inimitable way.”

Carter’s honors include the Indiana Governor’s Arts Award; the 1992 New Letters Literary Award for Poetry, judged by Philip Levine; the Poets’ Prize; and the 2002 Rainmaker Award for Poetry, judged by Marilyn Chin, as well as fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts. He lives in Indiana.

Bibliography

Darkened Rooms of Summer (University of Nebraska Press, 2014)
A Dance in the Street (Wind Publications, 2012)
Cross This Bridge at a Walk (Wind Publications, 2006)
Les Barricades Mystérieuses (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 1999)
After the Rain (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 1993)
Work, for the Night Is Coming (Macmillan, 1981)