Jean Garrigue was born Gertrude Louise Garrigus in Evansville, Indiana. She earned her B.A. from the University of Chicago and M.F.A from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Garrigue lived for many years in New York, where she worked as an editor and taught writing at institutions including Bard College, Queen’s College, the New School, the University of Colorado, Smith College, and the University of Washington, among other places. She published five collections of poetry—including her widely-praised first collection The Ego and the Centaur (1947)—and one novella, The Animal Hotel (1966), in her lifetime; her posthumously published books included Studies for an Actress and Other Poems (1973) and Selected Poems (1992). She also edited the anthology Translations by American Poets (1970) and wrote a critical work on Marianne Moore. Garrigue was the recipient of fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute, and the National Academy of Arts and Letters.
Critics praised Garrigue’s technical excellence as well as what Theodore Roethke called her “complex richness in rhythm and diction."
