Edward Gates : Writing Philosophy

Except in earlier work, typified by poems in The Guest Touches Only Those Who Prepare, Gates' poems follow the ghazal form, usually with a minimum of five couplets and an intuitive or psychic jump between couplets. This form demands economy of line, exactness of image and use of everyday speech; a pause or space often more meaningful than the words or phrases they separate.

Gates' poems are revelations of the familiar. They break the straight jacket of custom and convention, favoring common sense over abstraction and generalization; the present over a sentimentalized past or a fantasized future. Gates, a farmer, grows and harvests blueberries and eschews comforts of the "material" world for hardships of living close to earth, where survival depends on the weather, the proper use of technology and ultimately, on staying focused and healthy.

Edward Gates' works copyright © to the author.