[2] He was a founder with Nick Wayde of the poetry journal The Resuscitator in Bristol in 1963[3] and an active contributor to the worksheet, The English Intelligencer.
After serving as a bouncer, James got a job with Somerset water board, during which time his poems began to emerge.
With their children, the James family moved to Cambridge where from 1966 John was a teacher at the Cambridgeshire College of Arts and Technology.
Some of his poems were dedicated to his friends and family, including Barry Flanagan and Richard Long.
Later he would live with Patricia Coyle who was a senior lecturer in media studies at Anglia Ruskin University where James was an educator on literature and film.