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Introduction
Opening Salvo
Song for Gary Snyder
The Reality of It All Gary Snyder was born in 1930 in San Francisco. However, because of the social destruction of the Great Depression of the 1930s his family moved to the state of Washington. He spent his early formative years there developing a great love and appreciation for nature, native Americans, and learning. Like so many great American poets (Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, etc.) one of Mr. Snyder's boyhood jobs was as at a local newspaper, as copy-boy. But his real love seemed to be outdoors. Early in life he developed a love for mountain climbing.
At Reed College he met Carl Proujan, Phillip Whalen, and Lew Welch and published his first poems in a student journal. The summer after he graduated in 1951 with a BA in both anthropology and literature Mr. Snyder worked as a timber-scaler on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation. In his early and mid-twenties, Gary Snyder's experiences included studying Zen Buddhism, working as a seamen, working as a fire watcher on Desolation Peak, graduate studies in Asian culture and languages, and meeting Allen Ginsberg. Of course he had a great many other experiences, but these seemed to be the defining ones of his life.
Through Mr. Ginsberg, Gary Snyder met Jack Kerouac and others of the force that came to be known as the Beat movement. The New York writers seem to find Mr. Snyder's back country experiences and Eastern Zen studies refreshing and exotic. Lawrence Ferlinghetti referred to him as "the Thoreau of the Beat Generation"; however, as Mr. Snyder's eastern philosophy was teaching him, he transcended this title.
Mr. Snyder read his poem "A Berry Feast" at the now famous poetry reading at the Six Gallery in San Francisco (on October 7, 1955). This is marked as both the start of the San Franciscan poetry renaissance and the coming out party of the Beat Generation poets. However, like the transcendence of his Zen studies, Mr. Snyder needed to reach farther than being another Beat writer. Mr. Snyder spent most of the time between 1956 and 1968 in Japan in various monasteries studying Zen. In a poem from this period, Mr. Snyder's focus seemed to look inward so that he could better define the outer world.
During the 1970s Mr. Snyder was deeply involved with the back-to-basics movement. His beliefs in the sacred nature of the earth stemmed from his Zen beliefs and his studies in geomorphology and anthropology. His 1974 Turtle Island (the title is taken from the creation story shared by many native tribes) won a Pulitzer Prize.
All of his work and life reflect these very grounded views of harmony and respect for all of life. Mr. Snyder continues his work today as a professor emeritus of English.
Gary Snyder has received an American Academy of Arts and Letters award, the Bollingen Prize, a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship, the Bess Hokin Prize and the Levinson Prize from Poetry, the Robert Kirsch Lifetime Achievement Award from the Los Angeles Times, and the Shelley Memorial Award. Snyder was elected a Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets in 2003. He is a professor of English at the University of California, Davis. Bibliography:
Conclusion What does Gary Snyder mean to modern American poetry and life? He is a leader in spiritual verse and growth for multiple generations. He is helped open America to the power of Zen and its tenets. He has been a leader in living as an organism on the planet and appreciating the power and beauty of our surroundings and being not just stewards but living in harmony with other things. His poetry brushes aside our gauzy gaze and shows us truths. As I state over and again this is not an
academic paper. This is just my introduction to you. I hope that
I have opened a window and that you will look out and feel the
breeze of greatness. Thanks.
For more from Harry visit his columns: February, January, December, November, October; and his poetry: February, January, December, November, and October. Or his online home. |
Cheshire Cat
Nothin' Better
This
month I do wish to discuss the wonderful poetry of Gary Snyder.
Gary Snyder was the inspiration for Japhy Ryder in Jack Kerouac's
The Dharma Bums in the same way Neal Cassady had
inspired Dean Moriarty in On the Road. Mr. Kerouac met Mr. Snyder
when the two of them were on Desolation Mountain
as fire watchers in the mid-1950s. Gary Snyder is a poet, Zen
Master, environmentalist, naturalist, father, husband, teacher,
and above all a human being, in its best sense. And, this grandmaster
of American poetry is still alive. So I must state that the following
is my take on this great living treasure's poetry. I can only
hope that he continues and has good health for years to come.
Even
though Mr. Snyder first was known to me as a member of the San
Franciscan poetry beat scene, he was the "beatnik"
who wasn't. Mr. Snyder was never one to feel "beat"
and he was never one to feel beat down by the world. His poetry
and writings are always reaching for some higher understanding
and integration of life and spirit. Gary Snyder's poetry transcends
his images of nature and language. He reaches for some universal
spirit that touches us all as humans. We are part of the whole
and as such must treat existence as both holy and worldly.
