orn in Kingston, to Betty Kawalkiewicz. He was adopted shortly thereafter by John and Nelda Churry. As a young man, Czury grew up in the northeastern Pennsylvania coal mining region near Shamokin, in the Northumberland County, Pennsylvania. Growing up in this area helped Czury identify strongly with the coal region. When Czury was seven-years-old, the Susquehanna River flooded the Knox Anthracite Coal Mine in Luzerne County, the Knox Mine disaster, which killed 12 miners and left thousands of others out of work. The disaster crippled the economic foundation of the area. Loss, abandonment, displacement and leaving would become major themes in his poetry. After he graduated from Dallas High School in Dallas, Pennsylvania, Czury drifted between several colleges and various temporary jobs across the United States.

He spent 15 years hitchhiking across the country, working temporarily in carnivals, warehouses, and kitchens. He attended Hiram Scott College and Western Nebraska Community College, both in Scottsbluff, Nebraska. Czury then moved to the University of Montana in Missoula, before attending Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.