Norman Jope was born in 1960 in Plymouth, where he lives again after residence in a number of other locations (most recently Bristol and Budapest). He has published For the Wedding-Guest (Stride, 1997), The Book of Bells and Candles (Waterloo Press, 2009), Dreams of the Caucasus (Shearsman Books, 2010) and Aphinar (Waterloo Press, 2012) and his poetry has appeared in many magazines and webzines in the UK, Europe, North America and Australasia. With the late Ian Robinson, he co-edited the anthology In the Presence of Sharks: New Poetry from Plymouth (Phlebas, 2006). He was the editor of the literary and cultural magazine Memes and co-edited a Critical Companion to Richard Berengarten (Salt, 2011; reissued by Shearsman in 2016); critical work has appeared in Tears in the Fence, Terrible Work, Stride and other outlets. He currently works as an administrator in higher education and is also one of the organisers of the Language Club, a long-established live poetry collective based in Plymouth.