Alec Choate, a full time poet for many years, was educated at Hale School in Western Australia. He served in the AIF from 1940-1945, being stationed in the Middle East and the Pacific, and worked as a surveyor in the Public Service from 1945-1975, and also as a farmer.
Choate's poetry initially appeared in publications of the Jindyworobak movement. Described as sentimental, expressing an appreciation of art, literature, friendship and the natural world, his poetry has appeared in a number of Australian journals and anthologies. Choate also co-edited collections of verse.
In a letter to the Australian literary community at the time of Choate's death, fellow poet Dennis Haskell commented: 'Alec's war experiences made him deeply aware of "some curse/of hurt on humankind" and determined to celebrate the "meltingly beautiful" in people and place. "History", he wrote, "is a succession of cages" but his poetry is largely celebratory: "the voice of science itself/cannot help but come to me singing", "a fragment of glass/... is sea-beryl/and bites the sun's edge/like a waking eye" but "lies/in the crucible/of your hands as gold". Writing of a "Botticelli Quilt" Alec Choate commented on "the wistful calm he gave all he touched" and the comment could readily be applied to Alec's own work. He was a lovely man, in poetry and in life.'
A service was held for Alec Choate at Karrakatta Cemetery, Perth, Western Australia.
