Since the publication of his collections of poems, Blue Monday (1974) and From the Book of Shine (1979), Calvin Forbes has emerged as one of the prominent black voices to have developed out of the 1970s. Commanding ever more critical attention, his is a new and original voice. Winner of a 1973 Bread Loaf Writers' Conference Fellowship, 1974 Fulbright Grant, 1982-1983 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, 1984 D.C. Commission on the Arts Fellowship, as well as other awards, Forbes creates a distinctive poetry that is both experimental and complex. He communicates a philosophy, indeed a highly moral philosophy, as well as the thoughts and emotions of a writer whose artistic ability and vision are still expanding.

Much has gone into the process that shaped Forbes's life and art. He was born on 6 May 1945 and raised in Newark, New Jersey, the seventh of eight children of Jacob and Mary Short Forbes. He...