Poet, editor and teacher, David Ray  was born in Sapulpa, Oklahoma in 1932.

Ray is the author of twenty-one volumes of poetry, the most recent being “When” (2007), “Music of Time: Selected and New Poems” (2006) and The Death of Sardanapalus and Other Poems of the Iraq Wars(2004). A new volume, “After Tagore: Poems Inspired by Rabindranath Tagore” has  been released in the Nirala Series (2008).

Ray has taught at several colleges in the United States, including Cornell University, Reed College, the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and the University of Missouri-Kansas City, where he is professor emeritus. He has also taught in India, New Zealand, and Australia, and has published books inspired by the cultures of each country.

Ray died at the age of ninety-two on August 8, 2024.