Revard was born in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, an Osage Indian Agency town. His early education on the Osage reservation was in a single room with all the other grades of his school. In this environment, schoolwork was coupled with farming and other odd jobs, including greyhound training, but Revard still credits his teachers at the time with inspiring his interest in literature and science. A scholarship won on the back of a radio quiz enabled him to earn a BA at the University of Tulsa, and there he prospered well enough to gain a Rhodes Scholarship that enabled him to study at Oxford University, earning a BA there as well. A PhD at Yale University followed in 1959.

After gaining his doctorate, Revard taught at Amherst College. For most of his career, he has taught at Washington University in St. Louis, beginning in 1961. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Tulsa and the University of Oklahoma. Unusually for a Native American professor, Revard's major scholarly focus throughout his career has been on medieval British manuscripts, and their social context. He is a respected voice in this field.

Revard has also produced scholarly work on linguistics (specifically on the transition between Middle English and later forms of the language) and Native American literature.

In 1980 Revard published his first anthology, Ponca War Dances, revealing himself as a new, strongly political voice in Native American poetry.

An excerpt from "Discovery of the New World":

The creatures that we met this morning

marveled at our green skins

and scarlet eyes.

They lack antennae

and can't be made to grasp

your lawful proclamation that they are

our lawful food and prey and slaves

nor can they seem to learn

their body-space is needed to materialize

our oxygen absorbers ...

which they conceive are breathing

and thinking creatures whom they implore

at first as angels or (later) as devils

when they are being snuffed out

by an absorber swelling

into their space. . . .

We need their space and oxygen

which they do not know how to use,

yet they will not give up their gas unforced,

and we feel sure,

whatever our "agreements" made this morning,

we'll have to cook them all:

the more we cook this orbit,

the fewer next time around.

Revard has gone on to publish several more anthologies of poetry, the best known of which is probably An Eagle Nation. In most of his works, he interweaves poetry, autobiographical recollections and short, sometimes allegorical stories. His poems have also appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, and his work has been translated into French, Spanish, Italian and Hungarian.

• 2007 - American Indian Festival of Words Author Award
• 2005 - Lifetime Achievement Award, Native Writers' Circle of the Americas
• 2002 - Finalist, Oklahoma Book Award, Nonfiction category
• 2000 - Writer of the Year, Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers
• 1994 - Oklahoma Book Award, Poetry category

An issue of the journal Studies in American Indian Literatures (SAIL) (Spring 2003) was entirely devoted to discussions of his work.Carter Revard is a member of the Modern Language Association (MLA), the Association for Studies in American Indian Literature, the River Styx Literary Organization, the Association of American Rhodes Scholars, the University of Tulsa Board of Visitors, the St. Louis Gourd Dancers and Phi Beta Kappa.

He has served the American Indian Center of St. Louis as board member, Secretary and President.