Gary
Snyder Reader : Prose, Poetry,
and Translations, 1952-1998 by Gary
Snyder
Introducing this generous selection of the most
appealing of the Beat writers, Jim Dodge says he changed his college
major from fisheries management to "interdisciplinary studies,
incorporating biology, English, and journalism" after reading
Snyder's "Hay for the Horses." That early poem, from Riprap
(1959), is Snyder's "Stopping By Woods" or "Richard
Cory" --the one of his poems that, once read, is never forgotten,
perhaps because, like Frost's and Robinson's chestnuts, it makes a
statement about life's meaning, albeit a much more sanguine one than the
great New Englanders' poems make. It appears in Dodge's remarks and
again among the other poems in the collection. May it change other
lives, though if one is resistant to poetry, there is twice as much of
Snyder's prose here, concerned with nature, environmental consciousness,
mythology, and, underlying it all, Buddhism, of which Snyder has long
been a major practical Western exponent. Snyder is a man who lives
healthily in the world, and any of his work is likely to change lives.
-- Ray Olson
"The spirit contained in this collection is an
everlasting tug in the right direction." -- The Boston Book
Review
This monumental collection gathers the essays, travel
journals, letters, poems, and translations of one of the most
influential literary voices of the twentieth century.
Gary Snyder has been a major cultural force in America
for five decades-prize-winning poet, environmental activist, Zen
Buddhist, and reluctant counterculture guru. Having expanded far beyond
the Beat poems that first brought his work into the public eye, Snyder
has produced a broad-ranging body of work that encompasses his fluency
in Eastern literature and culture, his commitment to the environment,
and his concepts of humanity's place in the cosmos. The Gary Snyder
Reader showcases the panoramic range of his literary vision in a
single-volume survey that will appeal to students and general readers
alike.
Prose selections include letters to Lew Welch and
Philip Whalen; journals from his travels to Saigon, Singapore, Kyoto,
Ceylon, New Delhi, and Daramshala; meditations on Buddhism and the
surrender of self; a cultural survey of communal living; and notes from
the lookout tower on Sourdough Mountain, where Snyder once watched for
forest fires. Also included are two long interviews with Snyder from
East West Journal and The Paris Review.
The Reader also gathers poems from each phase of
Snyder's long career-from his first collection, Riprap, to the Pulitzer
Prize-winning Turtle Island, through his recently completed poem cycle,
Mountains and Rivers Without End. It also includes Snyder's little-known
translation of the great "Long Bitter Song" poem by Bai Juyi,
the longest poem in the Chinese language.
From freighter to fire tower, Zendo to Himalayan
mountain ridge, Snyder's writings reflect a lifetime of study, journey,
and mindfulness. Time and again, his work has captured key moments in
our changing culture, transforming our concept of literature and its
place in a purposeful life.
About the Author
Gary Snyder has published sixteen books of poetry and prose. His book
Turtle Island won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1975. No Nature, a
volume of selected poems, was a finalist for the National Book Award in
1992. When his long poem cycle, Mountains and Rivers Without End, was
published in 1996, Snyder was honored with the Bollingen Poetry Prize
and the Robert Kirsch Lifetime Achievement Award from the Los Angeles
Times.
Since 1970 he has lived with his family in the
watershed of the South Yuba River in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada
in Northern California.
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