Jayne Cortez was born in Fort Huachuca, Arizona, on May 10, 1934, grew up in California, and lived in New York City and Dakar, Senegal. She is the author of ten books of poems and performer of her poetry with music on nine recordings. Her voice has been celebrated for its political, surrealistic, and dynamic innovations in lyricism, and visceral sound.

Cortez has presented her work and ideas at universities, museums, and festivals in Africa, Asia, Europe, South America, the Caribbean and the United states. She lectured at the University of Leeds, UK. One of her favorite places was Cuba where she did readings with many renowned Cuban musicians , like Tate Guines ..., ... She served as an international juror on the selection committee for the Casa de las Americas literary prize in the mid 1980s.

Her poems have been translated into many languages and widely published in anthologies, journals, and magazines. She was the recipient of several awards, including the Arts International, the National Endowment for the Arts, the International African Festival Award, The Langston Hughes Award, the American Book Award, the Bellagio Residency Award from the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Thelma McAndless Distiguished Professorship Award.

Her most recent books are “On the Imperial Highway” (2009), “The Beautiful Book” (2007) by Bola Press and "Jazz Fan Looks Back" (2002) published by Hanging Loose Press. Her latest CD recordings with the Firespitter Band are “As if You Knew” (2011) and “Find Your Own Voice” (2007) both by Bola Press, "Taking the Blues Back Home” (1996) produced by Harmolodic/Verve Records. Cortez is cofounder and president of the Organization of Women Writers of Africa, Inc. (OWWA). She was an organizer of international symposiums and director of the films “Slave Routes: Resistance, Abolition & Creative Progress” (2009), "Yari Yari Pamberi: Black Women Writer Dissecting Globalization” (2007) and was in the process of editing her most recent film “Slave Routes: The Long Memory” She can be seen on screen in the films: "Women In Jazz" and "Poetry In Motion”.

Cortez had begun work on the upcoming Yari Yari Ntoaso, an international symposium of women writers from Africa and its diaspora to be held in Accra, Ghana, West Africa May 16-19, 2013. The symposium will be hosted by Mbaasem Foundation, presented by OWWA, and co-sponsored by New York University’s Institute of African American Affairs, NYU Accra, and Africana Studies Program. Yari means the future in the Kuranko language of Sierra Leone, and Ntoaso means understanding and agreement in the Akan language of Ghana. Next year's event would have been the third Yari Yari conference organized by Cortez and the first to be held in Africa.

Cortez was working on her most recent ideas at the home she and husband, sculptor Melvin Edwards shared in Dakar, Senegal. Cortez and Edwards were recently made honorary citizens of Saint Louis, Senegal in conjunction with the inauguration of Edwards’ public sculpture at Les Comptoirs Du Fleuve, a gift from Edwards to the city of Saint Louis. Cortez also accompanied Edwards to Art/Basel in Basel, Switzerland in June.

In April, Cortez joined the great jazz pianist, composer and bandleader Randy Weston for the premiere of “An African Nubian Suite” at the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts in New York City. A recording of that concert will be released in the coming months.