Jack e Lorts

Biography: Jack e Lorts

Jack e Lorts, ex-patriot from Suburbia, fled southern California some forty years ago, settling in rural Oregon where he has taught in small communities ever since, retiring in 2004 as superintendent of schools in Fossil, Oregon, population 500. A graduate of California State University, Fullerton (1962), he received his M.Ed. from the University of Oregon in 1978.

He was first published in the late 1950’s and early 60’s in such early avant garde magazines as Ron Padgett’s White Dove Review, Frank Davey’s Open Letter and the LA based Nomad, appearing alongside such innovative poets of that day as Allen Ginsberg, Ted Berrigan, Denise Levertov, Russel Edson, Cid Corman and Ron Padgett, among others. Over the past 50+ years, his poems have appeared widely, if infrequently, in such places as Arizona Quarterly, English Journal, Kansas Quarterly, Oregon English, Oregon East, Fishtrap Anthology, High Desert Journal, Arsenic Lobster, Quantum Tao, Haggard and Halloo and Elohi Gadugi, etc. He has published two chapbooks with Pudding House: The Daughter Poems & Others... (2008) and The Meeting Place of Words (2010) His chapbook, "Dear Gilbert Sorrentino & Other Poems" appeared from Finishing Line Press in 2011.

He has also assembled and seen into publication several "serial poems," thematically inter-connected poems by several different poets, including The Great Oregon Serial Poem (Talent House 2001) and The Other Side of the Hill: A Trek Through Eastern Oregon By Poet (Ice River (2003), and most recently, These Mountains That Separate Us (Traprock 2013).

Active in Democratic state politics, he has chaired the DPO's Rural Caucus, been a candidate for the Oregon House of Representatives, attended the 2008 Democratic National Convention as a delegate and served on the Fossil. OR City Council from 2006-2015, the last six years as Mayor.

He has been married for over fifty years. He and his wife Celia have three grown daughters and between 15-20 grandchildren, depending on how you count them.