What does being a poet mean? It means having one's own personal life, one's reality, in quite different categories from those of one's poetic work, it means being related to the ideal in imagination only, so that one's own personal life is more or less a satire on poetry and on oneself.

Kierkegaard, Journals

The death of Randall Jarrell, who was struck by an automobile in 1965, has always been surrounded by mystery. The official verdict was "accident," but many familiar with the case concluded that it was suicide. A. Alvarez, Martin Seymour-Smith, Galway Kinnell, and John Simon are perhaps the only writers to state Jarrell killed himself (though they offer no evidence for this assertion). Recently discovered documents now make it possible to say exactly what happened to Jarrell and to suggest some reasons for his tragic end.