Poet Profile

Larry Gates

Time split between Portal, AZ and Pawleys Island, SC. Raised in Jasonville, IN and Mattoon, IL. Studied at Eastern Illinois University, University of Illinois, and Colgate Rochester Divinity School. Awarded a PhD in psychology from George Peabody College of Vanderbilt University. Retired Professor of Psychology at University of Southern Mississippi, twice President of Mississippi Ornithological Society. Anti-war, environmentalist, socialist, liberation theology advocate, haiku poet. Numerous articles published in areas of developmental and Jungian psychology – also religion and natural history. One published book (with my wife Terrie) about hummingbirds.
Published in American Haiku, Haiku Magazine, Haiku West, Modern Haiku, Haiku Highlights, Dragonfly, Tweed, Janus, Firefly, Seer Ox, New World Haiku, Frogpond, Heron’s Nest, Acorn. Numerous haiku republished in The Haiku Anthology (Cor van Den Heuvel), The Haiku Handbook (Wm. Higginson)), Wind in the Wild Grass (Wm. Higginson), Haiku World (Higginson), A Haiku Path: The Haiku Society of America 1968 – 1988, 1994, Haiku Moment: An Anthology of Contemporary North American Haiku (Bruce Ross.), Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years (Kacian et. al.).

Visiting graves
this rainy afternoon
a sparrow family

A cloud on the water
I float, half-submerged
with the frogs

sound of the surf . . .
crab fishermen throw their nets
into the mist

passing whale’s eye . . .
the islands on the horizon
sink and rise again

Unknown birdsong―
I wander deeper
into the forest

deep
inside a rose
evening begins

Credits:

“Visiting graves” - Modern Haiku 15:1 (Winter–Spring 1984); “A cloud on the water”- Frogpond 11:3 (August 1988); “sound of the surf“ - Modern Haiku 4:3 (1973), Special Mention; “passing whale’s eye“ - Japanese Airlines (JAL) Contest 1987–88 Top Selection; “Unknown birdsong“ – The Heron’s Nest 16:1 (March 2014); “deep“ - Modern Haiku 15:1 (Winter–Spring 1984).