Norman Jope was born in 1960 in Plymouth, where he lives again after lengthy spells in other locations (most recently Bristol and Budapest) and is closely involved with the Language Club, a long-established live poetry collective based in the city.

He has published three collections: For the Wedding-Guest (Stride, 1997), The Book of Bells and Candles (Waterloo Press, 2009) and Dreams of the Caucasus (Shearsman Books, 2010).

With the late Ian Robinson, Jope 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).