Lisa Jarnot was born in Buffalo, New York in 1967. She attended the State University of New York at Buffalo during the late 1980s and Brown University from 1992-1994. Since the mid-1990s has been a resident of New York City.

She has edited two small magazines (No Trees, 1987-1990, and Troubled Surfer, 1991-1992) as well as The Poetry Project Newsletter and An Anthology of New (American) Poetry (Talisman House Publishers, 1997).

She is the author of four full-length collections of poetry: Some Other Kind of Mission (Burning Deck Press, 1996), Ring of Fire (Zoland Books, 2001 and Salt Publishers, 2003), Black Dog Songs (Flood Editions, 2003) and Night Scenes (Flood Editions, 2008). She is also the author of Robert Duncan: The Ambassador From Venus (University of California Press, 2012), a comprehensive biography of the San Francisco poet. Her work has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies including The Nation, The Brooklyn Rail, Jacket, Poetry 180: a turning back to poetry and Great American Prose Poems.

She has been a visiting writer at The Poetry Project, Naropa University, the University of Colorado and Brooklyn College, and has given readings and lectures throughout the United States, England and France.

She collaborated with New York filmmaker Jennifer Reeves on the 2004 film The Time We Killed, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival.

She currently lives in Sunnyside, New York where she lives with her husband and daughter and works as a freelance gardener.