Joan Murray

Joan Murray (born August 6, 1945) is an American poet, writer, playwright and editor. She is best known for her narrative poems and her book-length novel-in-verse, Queen of the Mist. In 1999, her collection Looking for the Parade won the National Poetry Series Open Competition.

Early life and education

Joan Murray was born in the South Bronx and attended Hunter College, first as a studio art major, and later as an English major, winning Hunter College's Bernard Cohen fiction prize. She married at 19 and had two children (one of whom died in infancy). She earned an M.A. from New York University and, in 1970, began teaching at Lehman College of the City University of New York.

Career

Murray’s first collection, The Same Water, won the Wesleyan New Poets Series Competition and was a finalist for the Academy of American Poets’ Walt Whitman Award. Her second book, Queen of the Mist, a novel-in-verse about the first person to go over Niagara in a barrel, was chosen by Joyce Carol Oates as runner up for a Poetry Society of America award; she was also commissioned by Broadway’s Jujamcyn Theaters to adapt it for the stage. Her third book, Looking for the Parade, was chosen by Robert Bly as winner of the National Poetry Series Open Competition. Her fourth book, Dancing on the Edge, was published in connection with her bestselling 9/11 anthology, Poems to Live By in Uncertain Times.

Murray's poetry, fiction, and essays have appeared in journals including Atlantic Monthly, Harper's,^[1] The Hudson Review, the Paris Review,^[2] Poetry, The Nation,^[3] The New York Times, the Village Voice, American Poetry Review, the Ontario Review, and in anthologies, including The Best American Poetry and The Pushcart Prize.

Typically Murray’s poetry focuses on actual people and situations and is characterized by its narrative structure, detailed imagery, long, rhythmic lines and emotional effects. The Poetry Foundation has said of it, “Working in free verse, Murray is a master of the single, unforgettable detail. Her accessible, image-driven narratives harness the urgency of their moral or social context while staying true to the pacing and music of daily life.”^[4]

In addition to her career as a writer and editor, Murray has held several positions in education and the arts. She was Writer in Residence at the New York State Writers Institute at the State University of New York at Albany, and Poet in Residence at Olana, the museum-home of painter Frederic Church. She has also taught writing for many statewide programs, including New York State Poets in the Schools and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. She also worked as an arts consultant and writer for the New York State Council on the Arts, for whom she designed a grant initiative for individual artists, and coordinated a multi-year project for independent publishers.

Murray currently lives and works in Old Chatham, New York.^[5]

Awards

• National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship (2011–12)
• Pushcart Prize, chosen by Ray Gonzalez and Philip Schultz (2008)
• New York State Council on the Arts Museum Program Grant for Olana residency (2006)
• National Poetry Series Open Competition Winner, chosen by Robert Bly (1999)
• New York Foundation for the Arts Artist Fund Grant for play adaptation (1999)
• National Endowment for the Arts Creation and Presentation Grant for Niagara residency (1998)
• New York State Council on the Arts Writer in Residence Grant (1994)
• Knight Foundation Fellowship at Yaddo for photography and verse collaboration (1994)
• Poetry Society of America Gordon Barber Award Winner, chosen by Billy Collins (1993)
• Poetry Society of America di Castagnola Award Runner-up, chosen by Joyce Carol Oates (1993)
• Poetry Society of America di Castagnola Award Finalist, chosen by Marge Piercy (1992)
• Winner, Wesleyan New Poets,^[6] by William Matthews, Pamela Alexander, Chase Twichell (1990)
• National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowship (1989–1990)
• Academy of American Poets Walt Whitman Award Finalist, chosen by Amy Clampitt (1988)
• New York Foundation for the Arts Poetry Fellowship (1988–1989)
• New York State Council on the Arts Writer in Residence Grant (1984–85)
• Pushcart Prize, chosen by Joyce Carol Oates (1984)
• New York State Council on the Arts Writer in Residence Grant (1983–84)
• Residencies at Yaddo, an artist's colony in upstate New York^[7] and The MacDowell Colony, an artist's colony in New Hampshire^[8]

Works

Books

• Dancing on the Edge. Beacon Press. 2002. ISBN 978-0-8070-6871-7. , poetry collection
• Looking for the Parade. W W Norton & Co Inc. 2000. ISBN 978-0-393-32064-0.  (winner of the 1998 National Poetry Series), poetry collection
• Queen of the Mist: The Forgotten Heroine of Niagara. Beacon Press. 1999. ISBN 978-0-8070-6852-6. , novel in verse
• The Same Water. Wesleyan University Press. 1990. ISBN 978-0-8195-1183-6.  (Wesleyan New Poets Series winner), poetry collection
• Egg Tooth, Sunbury Press, 1975

As editor

• The Pushcart Book of Poetry: The Best Poems from Three Decades of the Pushcart Prize. Pushcart Press. 2009. ISBN 978-1-888889-52-9. 
• Poems to Live By in Troubling Times. Beacon Press. 2006. ISBN 978-0-8070-6894-6. 
• Poems to Live By in Uncertain Times. Beacon Press. 2001. ISBN 978-0-8070-6869-4. 
• The Pushcart Prize 25th Anniversary Edition. Pushcart Press. 2001. ISBN 978-1-8888-8927-7. , poetry co-editor

External links

• Joan Murray's Official Site
• New York State Writers Institute page
• Norton Poets Online page for Joan Murray
• Online bio and Poem by Joan Murray at alittlepoetry.com
• "An Interview With Poet Joan Murray", Poets & Writers, Kevin Larimer
• Joan Murray Featured poet at alittlepoetry.com

Footnotes