Jim Coppoc was born on the west side of Chicago.  His parents, true to their Irish/Indian heritage, spent most of Coppoc’s growing up years in some sort of modern nomadism, chasing opportunity from state to state, never staying anywhere for more than a couple years.  Always the outsider, Coppoc attended several grade schools, 2 middle schools, and 3 high schools.  It was during this time that Coppoc discovered literature as a connection to kindred lost souls, often spending more time with Dickens, Salinger, Huxley or Hemingway than with his own friends or family.

After high school, Coppoc did some wandering of his own.  He worked as actor, comedian, singer/songwriter, soldier, bartender, repo man and truck driver, all in different parts of the country, all in an effort to sort out who he was and where he was going in life.  After flunking out of college twice, with majors in theater and physics, Coppoc made the decision to return to the books of his childhood, reacquainting himself with the kindred souls that had got him through so much.  Coppoc became an English major, with a focus in contemporary literature.

It wasn’t until the middle of his first master’s degree, an M.A. in literature, that Coppoc realized creating literature could sometimes be just as rewarding as consuming it.  Although his only real experience with poetry up to this time had been the King James Bible that was beaten into him as a child, Coppoc took a poetry writing course.  And then another.  And then another.  Two years later, Coppoc had an M.A. with a dual specialization in Creative Writing and Literature.  Four years after that, Coppoc had an MFA in Writing.

Somewhere in the middle of all this academic preparation, Coppoc discovered Slam.  It was here that he found his first living literary community, and here that he discovered the infectious energy of those who devote their lives to the pursuit of poetry.  From Slam, Coppoc discovered the Beats.  From the Beats, Coppoc discovered Whitman, Blake, et al.  From this expansive and sometimes explosive canon, Coppoc discovered himself.  Three books and three chapbooks of poetry later, and more than three hundred live performances, and Coppoc has finally found home.

Jim Coppoc lives in Ames, Iowa with his wife, writer and musician Jen McClung, and his two sons, Will and Fionn.  He teaches in the English Department and the American Indian Studies Program at Iowa State University, and in the low-residency MFA in Creative Writing program at Chatham University in Pittsburgh.  In what spare time his busy life allows him, Coppoc travels, plays bass in the Gatehouse Saints, and sometimes, when the mood is right, he still finds time to grab a good book and disappear into the lost words and worlds of great writers throughout history.