Born: February 12, 1917 in London
Died: January 4, 1942 in Saranac Lake
Joan Vincent Murray was a Canadian-American poet. She was born in London during a World War I air raid to Canadian parents, Stanley Webster Murray and Florence Margaret Murray, and spent her childhood years at schools in London, the United States, Paris, and Ontario. She studied dance and acting, appearing semi-professionally. She studied at The New School with W. H. Auden.
In 1941, she moved to Saranac Lake, staying with Elmer and Pauline Newton, known as "Dai," on Rockledge Road.
She had suffered from rheumatic fever as a child, and became ill after a walking trip in Vermont. She spent the last five months of her life moving between the Saranac Lake General Hospital and Rockledge. She was nursed by her mother and Dai, but succumbed at age 24
Five years after her death, Auden selected her book Poems (1947) for the Yale Series of Younger Poets prize. Her papers are at Smith College.
External links:
- The Epic, Neglected Vision of Joan Murray, Farnoosh Fathi, Paris Review, February 15, 2018
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Joan Murray’s Enduring Poetry of the Senses, Dan Chiasson, New Yorker, January 22, 2018
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Joan Murray and the Bats of Wisdom, Mark Ford, Poetry Magazine, February 2014
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Joan Murray, Thomas Bolt, Bomb Magazine, July 1, 1998
- Wikipedia: Joan Vincent Murray
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