Brief bio –
John Gorman was born in Chicago in 1944 and grew up in Oak Park (for a while) and Aurora (mostly), Illinois. He was an English major—no surprise here—at Notre Dame and did his graduate work at the University of Virginia. There he and Margaret Doran were married, out in a field but with a priest, in 1972. He came to Texas to be on the founding faculty of the University of Houston-Clear Lake in 1974. He and Margaret (who did the really heavy work on this) had two daughters, now gracefully grown. They all moved to Galveston in 1980. He had become, by then, a Texas Poet as well as a universal one.
Alternate – (from 2008 Ampersand Poetry Journal Texas Stars) –
John Gorman lives in Galveston and is retired from teaching literature and creative writing at UH-CL. He has three chapbooks, and his work is found in journals and anthologies in Texas, nationally, and in Canada, such as in Bayousphere, Houston Poetry Fest Anthology, Suddenly, and in The Weight of Addition: an anthology of Texas Poetry (2007) and in TimeSlice: Houston Poetry 2005, (both published by Mutabilis Press). In his words: I'm skeptical of the self-congratulation in such formulae as,"to the poet, writing is as essential as breathing. Yet poetry is like breathing—in comes the world, out it goes, perhaps years later, chemically changed. It's involvement. awareness, showing-off, gratitude, delight, a sort of open-minded friendliness. All at once.”
Vita — (to be provided)
