Jack Cooper

Poet and writer Jack Cooper was born in Fort Worth, Texas. He earned a BA from the University of the Redlands and completed graduate work at the University of Colorado. A conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, Cooper has worked as an educator, ESL instructor, screenwriter, magazine editor, and communications director for the High Desert Museum in Bend, Oregon. He also served as associate director of communications for the John Tracy Clinic in Los Angeles, a school for the oral deaf founded by Louise and Spencer Tracy.
 
Cooper is the author of the poetry collection Across My Silence (2007), and his observational free verse poetry has been published widely, in journals such as Bryant Literary Review, Main Street Rag, North American Review, and Xanadu. He has also collaborated with the woodblock artist P.A. Milton, and co-written plays with Charles Bartlett. Of his own work, Cooper once said: “I guess you could say I’m inspired by existence. Another way to phrase that would be existence is inspiration.”