Marvin Bell was born in in New York City on August 3, 1937, and grew up in the rural hamlet of Center Moriches, Long Island. He holds a bachelor's degree from Alfred University, a master's degree from the University of Chicago, and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Iowa.

He is the author several books of poetry, most recently Mars Being Red (Copper Canyon Press, 2007); Rampant (2004); Nightworks: Poems, 1962-2000 (2000); Ardor: The Book of the Dead Man, Volume 2 (1997); A Marvin Bell Reader: Selected Poetry and Prose (1994); The Book of the Dead Man (1994); Iris of Creation (1990); New and Selected Poems (1987); Stars Which See, Stars Which Do Not See (1977), which was a finalist for the National Book Award; A Probable Volume of Dreams (1969), which was a Lamont Poetry Selection of the Academy of American Poets; and Things We Dreamt We Died For (1966).

He has also published Old Snow Just Melting: Essays and Interviews, as well as Segues: A Correspondence in Poetry with William Stafford (both in 1983).

About his early work, the poet Anthony Hecht said, "Marvin Bell is wonderfully versatile, with a strange, dislocating inventiveness. Capable of an unflinching regard of the painful, the poignant and the tragic; but also given to hilarity, high-spirits and comic delight; and often enough wedding and blending these spiritual antipodes into a new world. It must be the sort of bifocal vision Socrates recommended to his drunken friends if they were to become true poets."

His honors include the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, and Senior Fulbright appointments to Yugoslavia and Australia.

He was on the staff of the The University of Iowa's Writers Workshop for more than thirty years, where he was the Flannery O'Connor Professor of Letters. He also served as a visiting lecturer at Oregon State University, Goddard College, the University of Hawaii, the University of Washington, and elsewhere. His former students include Rita Dove, James Tate, Jorie Graham, James Galvin, Norman Dubie, David St. John, Joy Harjo, and Marilyn Chin.

Beginning in 2000, Bell served two terms as the state of Iowa's first Poet Laureate. He currently divides his time between Iowa City and Port Townsend, Washington.