Born in Chicago, Loftis graduated from
Fisk University and earned graduate degrees from
Columbia University. His first book of poems,
Exiles and Voyages, was published in 1970 and was dedicated, "To my first friend,
W.H. Auden.” A later work,
Black Anima, was published in 1973 by
Liveright and describes an odyssey "from the
Alamac Hotel on Upper Broadway through the underground of contemporary Europe to
Queen Nefertiti's Egypt and back in search of black identity." His films include
Small Time (1990), which records lives of petty crime among young black men. His film
Messenger (1994) tells the story of a bicycle courier in Manhattan. It is considered to be a
remake of
Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thieves. ==References==