A gate enables passage between what is inside and what is outside, and the connection poetry forges between inner and outer lives is the fundamental theme of these nine essays. Nine Gates begins with a close examination of the roots of poetic craft in "the mind of concentration" and concludes by exploring the writer's role in creating a sense of community that is open, inclusive, and able to bind the individual and the whole in a way that allows each full self-expression. In between, Nine Gates illumines the nature of originality, translation, the various strategies by which meaning enfolds itself in language, poetry's roots in oral memory, and the importance of the shadow to good art.
In part a primer for the general reader, Nine Gates is also a manual for the working writer, with each "gate" exploring particular strategies of language and thought that allow a poem to convey meaning and emotion with clarity and force.
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