Kate Farrell

Poet Kate Farrell, the author of 8 books, grew up in Southern Pines, NC. After the death of her first husband, she moved with her two small children to New York City to complete a literature degree at Columbia University. There, she studied with the poet Kenneth Koch, with whom she would collaborate on various projects for years to come. First, as his co-teacher in a poetry workshop in the American Nursing Home, a class that resulted in Koch’s book, I Never Told Anybody, a volume she helped write. Farrell's teaching (wrote Koch) was a large part of what the book was about.

After graduating from Columbia Magna Cum Laude, she taught poetry in high schools in the NY Poets in the Schools Program, work that inspired her first book, Sleeping on the Wing: An Anthology of Modern Poetry with Essays on Reading and Writing, co-written with Koch and still widely used in high school and college classrooms. Her next book, Talking to the Sun, An Illustrated Anthology of Poetry for Young People, again with Koch as co-author, matched poetry from around the world with art works from the Metropolitan Museum. This volume also became a classroom staple. Farrell afterwards put together 4 more popular anthologies, all of which illustrate poetry with art works from the Metropolitan Museum or National Gallery. (Please see "Other Books" for further details.)

Farrell has taught Imaginative Writing at Columbia University, and she acted for a decade with the literature oriented New York Art Theater Institute (founded and led by Donald T. Sanders), playing lead roles in such venues as Joe Papp's Public Theater, The Metropolitan Museum and Barnard's Minor Latham Playhouse. She taught a "Poetry in the Theater" workshop at the Institute, funded by a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts, and her stage adaptation of Talking to the Sun was produced at Chicago's Goetz Theater, directed by Donald Sanders with poems set to music by jazz composer William Russo.

Farrell has also collaborated with her brother, the acclaimed environmental sculptor Patrick Dougherty (www.stickwork.net), giving slide talks in museums and other venues about the relation between the arts in conjunction with his installations. And she wrote the introductory essay to Sticks, an award-winning volume about Dougherty’s work, featuring photographs by James Florio (Radius Books, January 2025).

Farrell's poetry has been published in such journals as Poetry, Manhattan Review, Harvard Review, Hudson Review, Partisan Review, The New York Arts Journal, Mississippi Review and Columbia Review. Three of her works were chosen for editions of Best Spiritual Writing. She also curated a feature on Kenneth Koch for Poetry magazine, centered on an unpublished poem Koch dedicated to her.

Farrell’s Visiting Night the Academy Longing (see the Book of Poetry tab) was published by Lavender Ink. Her latest publication is You Are the You, Writings and Interviews on Poetry, Art, and the New York School by David Shapiro, edited by her and introduced by David Lehman (MadHat Press, 2025). (See the New Book tab.)