Remembering Randall: A Memoir of Poet, Critic, and Teacher Randall Jarrell

Mary von Schrader met Randall Jarrell at a writers' conference in 1951; they married a year later and remained inseparable for most of the 13 years until Randall's death in 1965. These nine essays record, admiringly and lovingly, aspects of Randall's work and of his life with Mary. One piece shows how Randall turned others' ideas and events into his own poems, beginning with his first love poem to Mary, a wonderful six-line exhortation called ""The Meteorite."" Another essay tracks the poet's deep friendship with the fiction writer Peter Taylor. Mary's analysis of Randall's ""Lyric Ear"" relates the aural effects in his poems to his actual speech. And a concluding essay tries hard to convey the ups and downs, the joys and difficulties, of Randall and Mary's odd and sometimes inspiring marriage: she follows and shares his successive enthusiasms, commiserates when his poet friends (like Robert Lowell) enter manic phases and tries hard to cope with the instability that marked the last year of Randall's life. Neither a critical study, nor a biography, nor a comprehensive memoir of the years it covers, this informal and amiable gathering of essays testifies first of all to Mary's deep love for her late husband, and to her persistent, cherishing attention to his work. Some of the best material (notably an essay on Washington, D.C., in the 1950s) is new, while a few of these essays appeared in literary journals in the 1970s. Readers seeking scandal will find none. Those who want to hear about happy marriages could do worse than discover Mary Jarrell's account. And no one who already cares for Randall's poetry or prose will want to miss Mary's recollections of its author. (June)