Joan Murray

Joan Murray (born August 6, 1945) is an American poet, writer, playwright, and editor. She is best known for her narrative poems, including her book-length novel-in-verse, Queen of the Mist, and her collection Looking for the Parade, which won the National Poetry Series Open Competition. Murray was born in the South Bronx and attended Hunter College, where she studied both studio art and English. She later earned an M.A. from New York University and began teaching at Lehman College of the City University of New York in 1970. 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.