Catherine Frances Murray (1918-1990) was a teacher, writer, and poet from Staten Island, New York. Born Catherine O’Malley, she attended NYC public grammar schools and Curtis High School. She had “skipped” grades three times in primary school and graduated from Curtis High School earlier than her peers. Too young to attend college, after graduation she enrolled for one term at Tottenville High School. After high school, she enrolled at Notre Dame College of Staten Island where she earned her undergraduate degree in English with honors in 1939.  She later earned her teaching credentials at Fordham University and Wagner College.

While at Notre Dame College, she was an editor, columnist, and reporter for the college newspaper. In addition, she wrote poetry and dramatic literature; one of her plays was produced by the college drama department. Her love of literature and writing was nurtured at Notre Dame College in her youth.

As an adult returning to the classroom, Murray studied poetry in the mid-1960’s at Wagner College with Kenneth Koch. He encouraged Murray to pursue the serious study of poetry at The New School, a magnet for New York avant-garde poets and their students.  While there, she won awards for her poetry, including The Dylan Thomas Memorial Award, which she shared with Mary Ferrari and Bill Kushner. In addition to poetry, Murray studied fiction with Hayes Jacobs and wrote short stories and two novels.

Murray and poets Frances Waldman, Annette Hayn and Mary Ferrari were friends who continued their collegial work beyond the New School. Members of the Second New York School of Poetry, they critiqued each others’ work, offering practical advice and support. In this way, Murray, Waldman, Hayn, and Ferrari created community and found success within the male-dominated New York City poetry scene. Throughout the late 60’s and the 70’s,  Murray was an active participant in the St. Mark’s Poetry Project reading with and being published alongside many notable contemporary poets including John Ashbery, Jim Carroll, Frank O’Hara, Anne Waldman, Mary Ferrari, Diane di Prima, and Gary Snyder, among many others.

While pursuing a full-time writing career, Murray worked both as a New York City public school teacher and later as a teaching artist for the New York Poets in the Schools program. The period of Murray’s greatest literary production was from the late 1960’s to 1982. She completed two novels in the latter part of her career. Her work was published in prestigious journals and magazines including Poetry, Virginia Quarterly Review, Commonweal, and Prairie Schooner, among other publications. She was the author of two books of poetry, The Transatlantic Flight of the Angel of Death (1990) and Lights in the Water (1993), which was published posthumously. Murray’s writing career was cut short when she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, making it difficult for her to write. “Awake at Five” was her last poem. It memorializes her struggle as a writer with Parkinson’s. Murray died in 1990.

Murray’s contribution to poetry, both locally and nationally, will be celebrated next year. The centenary of her birth, April 2018, will be marked by celebrations and readings of her work as well as the publication of unpublished and collected poems on a website devoted to her life and work and in a limited-edition chapbook.