Gary Snyder
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Gary Snyder (born May 8, 1930) is an American poet, essayist, lecturer, and
environmental activist The environmental movement (sometimes referred to as the ecology movement), also including conservation and green politics, is a diverse philosophical, social, and political movement for addressing environmental issues. Environmentalists ad ...
. His early poetry has been associated with the Beat Generation and the San Francisco Renaissance and he has been described as the "poet laureate of Deep Ecology". Snyder is a winner of a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the
American Book Award The American Book Award is an American literary award that annually recognizes a set of books and people for "outstanding literary achievement". According to the 2010 awards press release, it is "a writers' award given by other writers" and "the ...
. His work, in his various roles, reflects an immersion in both
Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...
spirituality and nature. He has translated literature into English from ancient Chinese and modern Japanese. For many years, Snyder was an academic at the
University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The inst ...
and for a time served as a member of the California Arts Council.


Life and career


Early life

Gary Sherman Snyder was born in
San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...
, to Harold and Lois Hennessy Snyder. Snyder is of German, Scottish, Irish and English ancestry. His family, impoverished by the
Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...
, moved to
King County, Washington King County is located in the U.S. state of Washington. The population was 2,269,675 in the 2020 census, making it the most populous county in Washington, and the 13th-most populous in the United States. The county seat is Seattle, also the ...
, when he was two years old. There, they tended dairy-cows, kept laying-hens, had a small orchard, and made cedar-wood shingles. At the age of seven, Snyder was laid up for four months by an accident. "So my folks brought me piles of books from the
Seattle Public Library The Seattle Public Library (SPL) is the public library system serving the city of Seattle, Washington. Efforts to start a Seattle library had commenced as early as 1868, with the system eventually being established by the city in 1890. The syst ...
," he recalled in an interview, "and it was then I really learned to read and from that time on was voracious — I figure that accident changed my life. At the end of four months, I had read more than most kids do by the time they're eighteen. And I didn't stop." Also during his ten childhood years in Washington, Snyder became aware of the presence of the Coast Salish people and developed an interest in the Native American peoples in general and their traditional relationship with nature. In 1942, following his parents' divorce, Snyder moved to
Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous ...
, with his mother and his younger sister, Anthea.Suiter (2002) p 54 Their mother, Lois Snyder Hennessy (born Wilkey), worked during this period as a reporter for ''
The Oregonian ''The Oregonian'' is a daily newspaper based in Portland, Oregon, United States, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the U.S. west coast, founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 18 ...
''. One of his boyhood jobs was as a newspaper copy-boy at the ''Oregonian''. During his teen years, he attended Lincoln High School, worked as a camp counselor, and went mountain-climbing with the Mazamas youth-group. Climbing remained an interest of his, especially during his twenties and thirties. In 1947, he started attending Reed College on a scholarship. Here, he met, and, for a time, roomed with the writer Carl Proujan, and became acquainted with the young poets Philip Whalen and Lew Welch. During his time at Reed, Snyder published his first poems, in a student journal. In 1948 he spent the summer working as a seaman. To get this job, he joined the now-defunct
Marine Cooks and Stewards The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) is a labor union which primarily represents dock workers on the West Coast of the United States, Hawaii, and in British Columbia, Canada. The union was established in 1937 after the 1934 We ...
union, and would later work as a seaman in the mid-1950s to gain experience of other cultures in port cities. Snyder married Alison Gass in 1950; they separated after seven months, and divorced in 1952. While attending Reed, Snyder conducted folklore research on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in central Oregon. He graduated with a dual degree in
anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...
and literature in 1951. Snyder's senior thesis, entitled ''The Dimensions of a Myth'', employed perspectives from anthropology, folklore, psychology, and literature to examine a myth of the Pacific Northwest's Haida people. He spent the following few summers working as a timber scaler at Warm Springs, developing relationships with its people that were rooted less in academia. This experience formed the basis for some of his earliest published poems (including "A Berry Feast"), later collected in the book ''The Back Country''. He also encountered the basic ideas of Buddhism and, through its arts, some East Asian traditional attitudes toward nature. He went to
Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. Campuses Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI. *Indiana Universi ...
with a graduate fellowship to study anthropology. (Snyder also began practicing self-taught Zen meditation.) He left after a single semester to return to San Francisco and to 'sink or swim as a poet'. Snyder worked for two summers in the North Cascades in Washington as a fire lookout, on Crater Mountain in 1952 and Sourdough Mountain in 1953 (both locations on the upper Skagit River). His attempts to get another lookout stint in 1954 (at the peak of
McCarthyism McCarthyism is the practice of making false or unfounded accusations of subversion and treason, especially when related to anarchism, communism and socialism, and especially when done in a public and attention-grabbing manner. The term origin ...
), however, failed. He found himself barred from working for the government due to his association with the Marine Cooks and Stewards. Instead, he went back to Warm Springs to work in
logging Logging is the process of cutting, processing, and moving trees to a location for transport. It may include skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks or skeleton cars. Logging is the beginning of a supply cha ...
as a
choker setter A choker setter or choke setter is a logging, logger who attaches cables to logs for retrieval by skidders or skyline logging, skylines. The work process involves the choker setter wrapping a special cable end (choker) around a log and then moving ...
. This experience contributed to his ''Myths and Texts'' and the essay ''Ancient Forests of the Far West''.


The Beats

Back in San Francisco, Snyder lived with Whalen, who shared his growing interest in Zen. Snyder's reading of the writings of D. T. Suzuki had in fact been a factor in his decision not to continue as a graduate student in anthropology, and in 1953 he enrolled at the
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant un ...
to study Asian culture and languages. He studied ink and wash painting under
Chiura Obata was a well-known Japanese-American artist and popular art teacher. A self-described "roughneck", Obata went to the United States in 1903, at age 17. After initially working as an illustrator and commercial decorator, he had a successful career a ...
and
Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an Zhou dynasty (690–705), interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dyn ...
poetry under Ch'en Shih-hsiang. Snyder continued to spend summers working in the forests, including one summer as a trail-builder in Yosemite. He spent some months in 1955 and 1956 living in a cabin (which he dubbed "Marin-an") outside
Mill Valley, California Mill Valley is a city in Marin County, California, Marin County, California, United States, located about north of San Francisco via the Golden Gate Bridge and from Napa Valley. The population was 14,231 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 ...
with Jack Kerouac. It was also at this time that Snyder was an occasional student at the American Academy of Asian Studies, where
Saburo Hasegawa was a Japanese calligrapher, painter, art writer, curator, and teacher. He was an early advocate of abstract art in Japan and an equally vocal supporter of the Japanese traditional arts (Japanese calligraphy, ikebana, tea ceremony, Ink wash paint ...
and Alan Watts, among others, were teaching. Hasegawa introduced Snyder to the treatment of landscape painting as a meditative practice. This inspired Snyder to attempt something equivalent in poetry, and with Hasegawa's encouragement, he began work on ''
Mountains and Rivers Without End ''Mountains and Rivers Without End'' is an epic poem by American poet and essayist Gary Snyder. Snyder began writing the thirty-nine poems contained in the epic in 1956 and published the final version in 1996. The work is divided into four p ...
'', which would be completed and published 40 years later. During these years, Snyder was writing and collecting his own work, as well as embarking on the translation of the "Cold Mountain" poems by the 8th-century Chinese recluse Han Shan; this work appeared in
chapbook A chapbook is a small publication of up to about 40 pages, sometimes bound with a saddle stitch. In early modern Europe a chapbook was a type of printed street literature. Produced cheaply, chapbooks were commonly small, paper-covered bookle ...
form in 1959, under the title ''Riprap & Cold Mountain Poems''. Snyder met
Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...
when the latter sought Snyder out on the recommendation of
Kenneth Rexroth Kenneth Charles Marion Rexroth (1905–1982) was an American poet, translator, and critical essayist. He is regarded as a central figure in the San Francisco Renaissance, and paved the groundwork for the movement. Although he did not consider ...
. Then, through Ginsberg, Snyder and Kerouac came to know each other. This period provided the materials for Kerouac's novel '' The Dharma Bums'', and Snyder was the inspiration for the novel's main character, Japhy Ryder, in the same way Neal Cassady had inspired Dean Moriarty in '' On the Road''. As the large majority of people in the Beat movement had urban backgrounds, writers like Ginsberg and Kerouac found Snyder, with his backcountry and manual-labor experience and interest in things rural, a refreshing and almost exotic individual. Lawrence Ferlinghetti later referred to Snyder as 'the Thoreau of the Beat Generation'. Snyder read his poem "A Berry Feast" at the poetry reading at the Six Gallery in San Francisco (October 7, 1955) that heard the first reading of Ginsberg's poem "Howl" and marked the emergence into mainstream publicity of the Beats. This also marked Snyder's first involvement with the Beats, although he was not a member of the original New York circle, having entered the scene through his association with Whalen and Welch. As recounted in Kerouac's ''Dharma Bums'', even at age 25 Snyder felt he could have a role in the fateful future meeting of West and East. Snyder's first book, ''Riprap'', which drew on his experiences as a forest lookout and on the trail crew in Yosemite, was published in 1959.


Japan and India

Independently, some of the Beats, including Whalen, had become interested in Zen, but Snyder was one of the more serious scholars of the subject among them, preparing in every way he could think of for eventual study in Japan. In 1955, the
First Zen Institute of America The First Zen Institute of America is a Rinzai institution for laypeople established by Sokei-an in New York, New York in 1930 as the Buddhist Society of America (changing its name after World War II). The emphasis on lay practice has its root ...
offered him a scholarship for a year of Zen training in Japan, but the
State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other na ...
refused to issue him a passport, informing him that "it has been alleged you are a Communist." A subsequent District of Columbia Court of Appeals ruling forced a change in policy, and Snyder got his passport. In the end, his expenses were paid by
Ruth Fuller Sasaki Ruth Fuller Sasaki (October 31, 1892 – October 24, 1967), born Ruth Fuller, was an American writer and Buddhist teacher. She was important figure in the development of Buddhism in the United States. As Ruth Fuller Everett (during her first ...
, for whom he was supposed to work; but initially he served as personal attendant and English tutorStirling (2006) p. 83 to Zen abbot Miura Isshu, at Rinko-in, a temple in Shokoku-ji in
Kyoto Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the c ...
, where American Buddhist popularizer Dwight Goddard and British author and Japanese culture devotee R. H. Blyth had preceded him. Mornings, after ''
zazen ''Zazen'' (literally " seated meditation"; ja, 座禅; , pronounced ) is a meditative discipline that is typically the primary practice of the Zen Buddhist tradition. However, the term is a general one not unique to Zen, and thus technical ...
'', '' sutta'' chanting, and chores for the abbot, he took Japanese classes, bringing his spoken Japanese up to a level sufficient for '' kōan'' study. He developed a friendship with Philip Yampolsky an eminent translator and scholar of Zen Buddhism, who took him around Kyoto. In early July 1955, he took refuge and requested to become Miura's disciple, thus formally becoming a Buddhist. In 1958, he returned to California via the Persian Gulf, Turkey, Sri Lanka and various Pacific Islands, voyaging as a crewman in the engine room on the
oil tanker An oil tanker, also known as a petroleum tanker, is a ship designed for the bulk transport of oil or its products. There are two basic types of oil tankers: crude tankers and product tankers. Crude tankers move large quantities of unrefined ...
''Sappa Creek'',Smith (2000) p. 12 and took up residence at Marin-an again. He turned one room into a '' zendo'', with about six regular participants. In early June, he met the poet
Joanne Kyger Joanne Kyger (November 19, 1934 – March 22, 2017) was an American poet. The author of over 30 books of poetry and prose, Kyger was associated with the poets of the San Francisco Renaissance, the Beat Generation, Black Mountain, and the New Y ...
. She became his girlfriend, and eventually his wife. In 1959, he shipped for Japan again, where he rented a cottage outside Kyoto. He became the first foreign disciple of Rinzai '' Rōshi'' Oda Sesso, the new
abbot Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the male head of a monastery in various Western religious traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not the head of a monastery. Th ...
of Daitoku-ji. He married Kyger on February 28, 1960, immediately after her arrival in Japan, which Fuller Sasaki insisted they do, if they were to live together and be associated with the Nichibei Daiichi Zen Kyokai,.Stirling (2006) p. 110 Snyder and Kyger were married from 1960 to 1965.Suiter (2002) p. 325 During the period between 1956 and 1969, Snyder went back and forth between California and Japan,Suiter (2002) p. 250 studying Zen, working on translations with Fuller Sasaki, and finally living for a while with a group of other people on the small, volcanic island of Suwanosejima. His previous study of written Chinese assisted his immersion in the Zen tradition, which has its roots in
Tang Dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an Zhou dynasty (690–705), interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dyn ...
China, and enabled him to support himself while he was living in Japan. Snyder received the Zen precepts and his dharma name of ''Chofu'' ("Listen to the Wind"), and lived occasionally as a ''de facto''
monk A monk (, from el, μοναχός, ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedic ...
, but never registered to become a
priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in partic ...
, planning eventually to return to the United States to "turn the wheel of the dharma". During this time, he published two collections of his poems from the early to mid 1950s, ''Myths & Texts'' (1960), and ''Six Sections from Mountains and Rivers Without End'' (1965). This last was the beginning of a project that he was to continue working on until the late 1990s. Much of Snyder's poetry expresses experiences, environments, and insights involved with the work he has done for a living: logger, fire-lookout, steam-freighter crew, translator, carpenter, and itinerant poet, among other things. During his years in Japan, Snyder was also initiated into '' Shugendo'', a highly syncretic
ascetic Asceticism (; from the el, ἄσκησις, áskesis, exercise', 'training) is a lifestyle characterized by abstinence from sensual pleasures, often for the purpose of pursuing spiritual goals. Ascetics may withdraw from the world for their p ...
religious cult.Kyger (2000) p. 103 In the early 1960s he traveled for six months through India with Kyger, Ginsberg, and Ginsberg's partner, the poet and actor
Peter Orlovsky Peter Anton Orlovsky (July 8, 1933 – May 30, 2010) was an American poet and actor. He was the long-time partner of Allen Ginsberg. Early life and career Orlovsky was born in the Lower East Side of New York City, the son of Katherine (née ...
. Snyder and Kyger separated soon after one trip to India, and divorced in 1965.


Dharma Bums

In the 1950s, Snyder took part in the rise of a strand of Buddhist anarchism emerging from the Beat movement. Snyder was the inspiration for the Japhy Ryder character in Kerouac's novel '' The Dharma Bums'' (1958). Snyder had spent considerable time in Japan studying Zen Buddhism, and in 1961 published an essay, "Buddhist Anarchism", where he described the connection he saw between these two traditions, originating in different parts of the world: "The mercy of the
West West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...
has been
social revolution Social revolutions are sudden changes in the structure and nature of society. These revolutions are usually recognized as having transformed society, economy, culture, philosophy, and technology along with but more than just the political sys ...
; the mercy of the East has been individual insight into the basic self/void." He advocated "using such means as
civil disobedience Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal of a citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders or commands of a government (or any other authority). By some definitions, civil disobedience has to be nonviolent to be called "civil". H ...
, outspoken criticism, protest,
pacifism Pacifism is the opposition or resistance to war, militarism (including conscription and mandatory military service) or violence. Pacifists generally reject theories of Just War. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace camp ...
, voluntary poverty and even gentle violence" and defended "the right of individuals to smoke
ganja Ganja (, ; ) is one of the oldest and most commonly used synonyms for marijuana. Its usage in English dates to before 1689. Etymology ''Ganja'' is borrowed from Hindi/Urdu ( hi, गांजा, links=no, ur, , links=no, IPA: aːɲd͡ ...
, eat peyote, be
polygynous Polygyny (; from Neoclassical Greek πολυγυνία (); ) is the most common and accepted form of polygamy around the world, entailing the marriage of a man with several women. Incidence Polygyny is more widespread in Africa than in any ...
, polyandrous or homosexual" which he saw as being banned by "the Judaeo-Capitalist-Christian-Marxist West".


Kitkitdizze

In 1966, Snyder joined Allen Ginsberg, Richard Baker, future Roshi of the San Francisco Zen Center, and
Kriyananda Kriyananda (born James Donald Walters; May 19, 1926 – April 21, 2013) was an American Hindu religious leader, yoga guru, musician, and an author. He was a direct disciple of Paramahansa Yogananda, and founder of the spiritual movement nam ...
aka Donald J Walters, to buy in the Sierra foothills, north of Nevada City, California. In 1970, this would become his home, with the Snyder family's portion being named Kitkitdizze. Snyder spent the summers of 1967 and 1968 with a group of Japanese back-to-the-land drop-outs known as "the Tribe" on SuwanosejimaHalper (1991) p. 94 (a small Japanese island in the
East China Sea The East China Sea is an arm of the Western Pacific Ocean, located directly offshore from East China. It covers an area of roughly . The sea’s northern extension between mainland China and the Korean Peninsula is the Yellow Sea, separated ...
), where they combed the beaches, gathered edible plants, and fished. On the island, on August 6,Suiter (2002) p. 251 1967, he married Masa Uehara, whom he had met in Osaka a year earlier. In 1968, they moved to California with their infant son, Kai (born April 1968). Their second son, Gen, was born a year later. In 1971, they moved to the San Juan Ridge in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada of Northern California, near the South Yuba River, where they and friends built a house that drew on rural-Japanese and Native-American architectural ideas. In 1967 his book ''The Back Country'' appeared, again mainly a collection of poems stretching back over about fifteen years. Snyder devoted a section at the end of the book to his translations of eighteen poems by Kenji Miyazawa.


Later life and writings

''Regarding Wave'' appeared in January 1970, a stylistic departure offering poems that were more emotional, metaphoric, and lyrical. From the late 1960s, the content of Snyder's poetry increasingly had to do with family, friends, and community. He continued to publish poetry throughout the 1970s, much of it reflecting his re-immersion in life on the American continent and his involvement in the back-to-the-land movement in the Sierra foothills. His 1974 book '' Turtle Island'', titled after a Native American name for the North American continent, won a Pulitzer Prize. It also influenced numerous West Coast Generation X writers, including
Alex Steffen Alex Steffen (born 1968) is an American futurist who writes and speaks about sustainability and the future of the planet. He emphasizes the importance of imagining persuasive, positive possible futures: "It's literally true that we can't build ...
, Bruce Barcott and Mark Morford. His 1983 book ''Axe Handles'', won an American Book Award. Snyder wrote numerous essays setting forth his views on poetry, culture, social experimentation, and the environment. Many of these were collected in ''Earth House Hold'' (1969), ''The Old Ways'' (1977), ''The Real Work'' (1980), ''The Practice of the Wild'' (1990), ''A Place in Space'' (1995), and ''The Gary Snyder Reader'' (1999). In 1979, Snyder published ''He Who Hunted Birds in His Father's Village: The Dimensions of a Haida Myth'', based on his Reed thesis. Snyder's journals from his travel in India in the mid-1960s appeared in 1983 under the title ''Passage Through India''. In these, his wide-ranging interests in cultures, natural history, religions, social critique, contemporary America, and hands-on aspects of rural life, as well as his ideas on literature, were given full-blown articulation. In 1986, Snyder became a professor in the writing program at the
University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The inst ...
. Snyder is now professor emeritus of English. Snyder was married to Uehara for twenty-two years; the couple divorced in 1989. Snyder married Carole Lynn Koda (October 3, 1947 – June 29, 2006), who would write ''Homegrown: Thirteen brothers and sisters, a century in America'', in 1991, and remained married to her until her death of cancer. She had been born in the third generation of a successful Japanese-American farming family, noted for its excellent rice. She shared Buddhism, extensive travels, and work with Snyder, and performed independent work as a naturalist. As Snyder's involvement in environmental issues and his teaching grew, he seemed to move away from poetry for much of the 1980s and early 1990s. However, in 1996 he published the complete ''
Mountains and Rivers Without End ''Mountains and Rivers Without End'' is an epic poem by American poet and essayist Gary Snyder. Snyder began writing the thirty-nine poems contained in the epic in 1956 and published the final version in 1996. The work is divided into four p ...
'', a mixture of the lyrical and epic modes celebrating the act of inhabitation on a specific place on the planet. This work was written over a 40-year period. It has been translated into Japanese, French and Russian. In 2004 Snyder published ''Danger on Peaks'', his first collection of new poems in twenty years. Snyder was awarded the Levinson Prize from the journal ''Poetry'', the American Poetry Society Shelley Memorial Award (1986), was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1987), and won the 1997 Bollingen Prize for Poetry and, that same year, the John Hay Award for Nature Writing. Snyder also has the distinction of being the first American to receive the Buddhism Transmission Award (for 1998) from the Japan-based Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai Foundation. For his ecological and social activism, Snyder was named as one of the 100 visionaries selected in 1995 by ''
Utne Reader ''Utne Reader'' (also known as ''Utne'') ( ) is a digital digest that collects and reprints articles on politics, culture, and the environment, generally from alternative media sources including journals, newsletters, weeklies, zines, music, and ...
''. Snyder's life and work was celebrated in John J. Healy's 2010 documentary ''The Practice of the Wild.'' The film, which debuted at the 53rd San Francisco International Film Festival, features wide-ranging, running conversations between Snyder and poet, writer and longtime colleague Jim Harrison, filmed mostly on the Hearst Ranch in San Simeon, California. The film also shows archival photographs and film of Snyder's life.


Work


Poetics

Gary Snyder uses mainly common speech-patterns as the basis for his lines, though his style has been noted for its "flexibility" and the variety of different forms his poems have taken. He typically uses neither conventional meters nor intentional rhyme. "Love and respect for the primitive tribe, honour accorded the Earth, the escape from city and industry into both the past and the possible, contemplation, the communal", such, according to Glyn Maxwell, is the awareness and commitment behind the specific poems. The author and editor Stewart Brand once wrote: "Gary Snyder's poetry addresses the life-planet identification with unusual simplicity of style and complexity of effect." According to Jody Norton, this simplicity and complexity derives from Snyder's use of natural imagery (geographical formations, flora, and fauna) in his poems. Such imagery can be both sensual at a personal level yet universal and generic in nature. In the 1968 poem "Beneath My Hand and Eye the Distant Hills, Your Body," the author compares the intimate experience of a lover's caress with the mountains, hills, cinder cones, and craters of the Uintah Mountains. Readers become explorers on both a very private level as well as a very public and grand level. A simplistic touch becoming a very complex interaction occurring at multiple levels. This is the effect Snyder intended. In an interview with Faas, he states, "There is a direction which is very beautiful, and that's the direction of the organism being less and less locked into itself, less and less locked into its own body structure and its relatively inadequate sense organs, towards a state where the organism can actually go out from itself and share itself with others." Snyder has always maintained that his personal sensibility arose from his interest in Native Americans and their involvement with nature and knowledge of it; indeed, their ways seemed to resonate with his own. And he has sought something akin to this through Buddhist practices, Yamabushi initiation, and other experiences and involvements. However, since his youth he has been quite literate, and he has written about his appreciation of writers of similar sensibilities, like
D. H. Lawrence David Herbert Lawrence (11 September 1885 – 2 March 1930) was an English writer, novelist, poet and essayist. His works reflect on modernity, industrialization, sexuality, emotional health, vitality, spontaneity and instinct. His best-k ...
, William Butler Yeats, and some of the great ancient Chinese poets. William Carlos Williams was another influence, especially on Snyder's earliest published work. Starting in high school, Snyder read and loved the work of Robinson Jeffers, his predecessor in poetry of the landscape of the American West; but, whereas Jeffers valued nature over humankind, Snyder saw humankind as part of nature. Snyder commented in interviews, "I have some concerns that I'm continually investigating that tie together
biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary ...
,
mysticism Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute, but may refer to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or spiritual meaning. It may also refer to the attainment of insight in ...
,
prehistory Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The us ...
, general systems theory". Snyder argues that poets, and humans in general, need to adjust to very long timescales, especially when judging the consequences of their actions. His poetry examines the gap between nature and culture so as to point to ways in which the two can be more closely integrated. In 2004, receiving the Masaoka Shiki International Haiku Awards Grand Prize, Snyder highlighted traditional ballads and folk songs, Native American songs and poems, William Blake,
Walt Whitman Walter Whitman (; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among ...
, Jeffers,
Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Fascism, fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works ...
, Noh drama, Zen aphorisms, Federico García Lorca, and Robert Duncan as significant influences on his poetry, but added, "the influence from haiku and from the Chinese is, I think, the deepest."


Romanticism

Snyder is among those writers who have sought to dis-entrench conventional thinking about primitive peoples that has viewed them as simple-minded, ignorantly superstitious, brutish, and prone to violent emotionalism. In the 1960s Snyder developed a " neo-tribalist" viewSnyder (1969) "Why Tribe?," in ''Earth House Hold''. New York: New Directions. akin to the "post-modernist" theory of French Sociologist Michel Maffesoli. The "re-tribalization" of the modern, mass-society world envisioned by Marshall McLuhan, with all of the ominous, dystopian possibilities that McLuhan warned of, subsequently accepted by many modern intellectuals, is not the future that Snyder expects or works toward. Snyder's is a positive interpretation of the tribe and of the possible future. Todd Ensign describes Snyder's interpretation as blending ancient tribal beliefs and traditions, philosophy, physicality, and nature with politics to create his own form of Postmodern environmentalism. Snyder rejects the perspective which portrays nature and humanity in direct opposition to one another. Instead, he chooses to write from multiple viewpoints. He purposely sets out to bring about change on the emotional, physical, and political levels by emphasizing the ecological problems faced by today's society.


Beat

Gary Snyder is widely regarded as a member of the Beat Generation circle of writers: he was one of the poets that read at the famous ''Six Gallery'' event, and was written about in one of Kerouac's most popular novels, ''The Dharma Bums''. Some critics argue that Snyder's connection with the Beats is exaggerated and that he might better be regarded as a part of the San Francisco Renaissance, which developed independently. Snyder himself has some reservations about the label "Beat", but does not appear to have any strong objection to being included in the group. He often talks about the Beats in the first person plural, referring to the group as "we" and "us". A quotation from a 1974 interview at the University of North Dakota Writers Conference (published in ''The Beat Vision''):
I never did know exactly what was meant by the term 'The Beats', but let's say that the original meeting, association, comradeship of Allen insberg myself, Michael cClure Lawrence erlinghetti Philip Whalen, who's not here, Lew Welch, who's dead, Gregory
orso oRSo is a US-based band formed in 1996 and led by Phil Spirito of Rex, HiM (US), Loftus, and Califone featuring Brian Deck of Red Red Meat and Ben Massarella of Califone. The musical style is self-described a"carny rock, chamber folk or just or ...
for me, to a somewhat lesser extent (I never knew Gregory as well as the others) did embody a criticism and a vision which we shared in various ways, and then went our own ways for many years. Where we began to come really close together again, in the late '60s, and gradually working toward this point, it seems to me, was when Allen began to take a deep interest in Oriental thought and then in Buddhism which added another dimension to our levels of agreement; and later through Allen's influence, Lawrence began to draw toward that; and from another angle, Michael and I after the lapse of some years of contact, found our heads very much in the same place, and it's very curious and interesting now; and Lawrence went off in a very political direction for a while, which none of us had any objection with, except that wasn't my main focus. It's very interesting that we find ourselves so much on the same ground again, after having explored divergent paths; and find ourselves united on this position of powerful environmental concern, critique of the future of the individual state, and an essentially shared poetics, and only half-stated but in the background very powerfully there, a basic agreement on some Buddhist type psychological views of human nature and human possibilities.
Snyder has also commented "The term Beat is better used for a smaller group of writers ... the immediate group around Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, plus Gregory Corso and a few others. Many of us ... belong together in the category of the San Francisco Renaissance. ... Still, beat can also be defined as a particular state of mind ... and I was in that mind for a while".''The Columbia History of American Poetry'' (1993) by Jay Parini and Brett Candlish Millier


Bibliography

*''Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems'' (1959) *''Myths & Texts'' (1960) *''Six Sections from Mountains and Rivers Without End'' (1965) *''The Back Country'' (Fulcrum, 1967) *''Regarding Wave'' (1969) *''Earth House Hold'' (1969) *''
Smokey the Bear Sutra The Smokey the Bear Sutra is a 1969 poem by Gary Snyder which presents environmental concerns in the form of a Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition ...
'' (1969) *'' Turtle Island'' (1974) *''The Old Ways'' (1977) *''He Who Hunted Birds in His Father's Village: The Dimensions of a Haida Myth'' (1979) *''The Real Work: Interviews & Talks 1964-1979'' (1980) *''Axe Handles'' (1983) *''Passage Through India'' (1983) *''Left Out in the Rain'' (1988) *''The Practice of the Wild'' (1990) *''No Nature: New and Selected Poems'' (1992) *''A Place in Space'' (1995) *narrator of the audio book version of Kazuaki Tanahashi's ''Moon in a Dewdrop'' from Dōgen's ''
Shōbōgenzō is the title most commonly used to refer to the collection of works written in Japan by the 13th century Buddhist monk and founder of the Sōtō Zen school, Eihei Dōgen. Several other works exist with the same title (see above), and it is so ...
'' *''
Mountains and Rivers Without End ''Mountains and Rivers Without End'' is an epic poem by American poet and essayist Gary Snyder. Snyder began writing the thirty-nine poems contained in the epic in 1956 and published the final version in 1996. The work is divided into four p ...
'' (1996) *''The Geography Of Home'' (Poetry book)(1999) *''The Gary Snyder Reader: Prose, Poetry, and Translations'' (1999) *''The High Sierra of California'', with Tom Killion (2002) *''Look Out: a Selection of Writings'' (November 2002) *''Danger on Peaks'' (2005) *''Back on the Fire: Essays'' (2007) *''The Selected Letters of
Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...
and Gary Snyder, 1956-1991'' (2009) *''Tamalpais Walking'', with Tom Killion (2009) *''The Etiquette of Freedom'', with Jim Harrison (2010): film by Will Hearst with book edited by Paul Ebenkamp *''Nobody Home: Writing, Buddhism, and Living in Places'', with Julia Martin,
Trinity University Press Trinity University Press is a university press affiliated with Trinity University, which is located in San Antonio, Texas. Trinity University Press was officially founded in 1967 after the university acquired the Illinois-based Principia Press. T ...
(2014) *''This Present Moment'' (April 2015) *''Distant Neighbors: The Selected Letters of Wendell Berry and Gary Snyder'' (May 2015) *''The Great Clod: Notes and Memories on Nature and History in East Asia'' (March 2016) *'' Dooby Lane: Also Known as Guru Road, A Testament Inscribed in Stone Tablets by DeWayne Williams'', with Peter Goin (October 2016)


Citations


General sources

* Charters, Ann (ed.). ''The Portable Beat Reader''. Penguin Books. New York. 1992. (hc); (pbk) * Hunt, Anthony. "Genesis, Structure, and Meaning in Gary Snyder's Mountains and Rivers Without End" Univ. of Nevada Press. 2004. * Knight, Arthur Winfield. Ed. ''The Beat Vision'' (1987) Paragon House. ; (pbk) * Kyger, Joanne. ''Strange Big Moon: The Japan and India Journals: 1960–1964'' (2000) North Atlantic Books. * Smith, Eric Todd. ''Reading Gary Snyder's Mountains and Rivers Without End'' (1999) Boise State University. * Snyder, Gary. ''The Politics of Ethnopoetics'' (1975
Snyder essay ''A Place in Space''
* Snyder, Gary. 1980. ''The Real Work: Interviews & Talks 1964–1979''. New Directions, New York. (hbk); (pbk) * Stirling, Isabel. ''Zen Pioneer: The Life & Works of Ruth Fuller Sasaki'' (2006) Shoemaker & Hoard. * Suiter, John. ''Poets on the Peaks'' (2002) Counterpoint. ; (pbk) * Western Literature Association. ''Updating the Literary West'' (1997) Texas Christian University Press.


Further reading

* Sherlock, John. (2010)
Gary Snyder: a bibliography of works by and about Gary Snyder
.
UC Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The institu ...
Library.


External links

*
Profile at Poetry Foundation

Profile at Poets.org

Snyder talk "Mountains and Rivers without End"
at the Smithsonian Museums of Asian art (Audio 1 hr) at 12 July 2008
Talk programme

"The Wild Mind Of Gary Snyder"
by Trevor Carolan an
"Writers and the War Against Nature"
by Gary Snyder in ''Shambhala Sun'' magazine
2007 Public Access TV interview (Nevada County TeleVision), 61 minutes

"Gary Snyder"
by Bert Almon from th
Western Writers Series Digital Editions
at Boise State University

* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110310061737/http://sf360.linkingarts.com/features/gary-snyder-on-art-anarchy-and-the-environment Gary Snyder on Art, Anarchy and the Environment (2010 San Francisco Film Society interview)]
Gary Snyder Papers
a
Special Collections Dept.
University Library, University of California, Davis

MSS 719
Special Collections & Archives
UC San Diego Library.
Records of Gary Snyder are held by Simon Fraser University's Special Collections and Rare Books

Western American Literature Journal: Gary Snyder
{{DEFAULTSORT:Snyder, Gary 1930 births Activists from California American Book Award winners American environmentalists American male non-fiction writers American male poets American non-fiction environmental writers American people of English descent American people of German descent American people of Irish descent American people of Scottish descent American spiritual writers American Buddhists American Zen Buddhists Anti-consumerists Beat Generation writers Bollingen Prize recipients Deep ecologists Engaged Buddhists English-language haiku poets Industrial Workers of the World members Lincoln High School (Portland, Oregon) alumni Living people Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters The Oregonian people PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award winners Pulitzer Prize for Poetry winners Reed College alumni Rinzai Buddhists University of California, Davis faculty Writers from Portland, Oregon