Mark Jarman

Mark F. Jarman (born in Mount Sterling, Kentucky) is an American poet and critic often identified with the New Narrative branch of the New Formalism; he was co-editor with Robert McDowell of The Reaper throughout the 1980s.

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 family returned to California in 1961, where his father served South Bay Christian Church in Redondo Beach and his sister Luanne was born.

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 in Perugia.

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.