Jay Wright's work focuses largely on personal biography, Afro-American historical experience, and spiritual quest. Within his writing, these subjects are assimilated into mythological and ritual forms derived from his studies in the history of religions, literature, and anthropology. Although Jay Wright is typical of his generation of black poets in his attempt to create a vision of what might be called black culture, his poetry is distinguished by the systematic use of African and native American cosmologies and his attempt to incorporate early Christian and Renaissance writers, such as Augustine and Dante, into the fabric of his vision. Wright's most recent work shows increasing sensitivity to the continuities between Western and African traditions in the themes of spiritual quest for redemption and creativity.

Jay Wright was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in 1935 to Leona Dailey and Mercer Murphy Wright. His father, a mechanic and jitney driver, was born...