The Gary Snyder Reader Prose, Poetry, and Translations

by Snyder, Gary

• ISBN13: 9781582430799
• ISBN10: 1582430799
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-03-16
• Publisher: Counterpoint

Summary

Gary Snyder has been a major cultural force in America for five decades—prize–winning poet, environmental activist, Zen Buddhist, earth–householder, and reluctant counterculture guru. This monumental collection gathers the essays, travel journals, letters, poems, and translations of one of the most influential voices of the twentieth century.

Author Biography

Gary Snyder is the author of more than twenty collections of poetry and prose. Since 1970 he has lived in the watershed of the South Yuba River in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1975, Snyder has also been awarded the Bollingen Prize for Poetry and the Robert Kirsch Lifetime Achievement Award. His 1992 collection, No Nature, was a National Book Award finalist, and in 2008 he received the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. Snyder is a poet, environmentalist, educator and Zen Buddhist.

Table of Contents

Foreword	xv
Jim Dodge
Author's Note	xxi
Prose
Earth house Hold
Lookout's Journal	5	(19)
Japan First Time Around	24	(10)
Spring Sesshin at Shokoku-ji	34	(7)
Buddhism and the Possibilities of a Planetary Culture	41	(3)
Passage to More Than India	44	(8)
Poettry and the Primitive	52	(10)
Suwa-no-se Island and the Banyan Ashram	62	(9)
He Who Hunted Birds in His Father's Village
The Myth	71	(4)
Function of the Myth	75	(16)
The Real Work
The East West Interview	91	(38)
Passage Through India
The Cambodge	129	(6)
Pondicherry	135	(4)
Khajuraho	139	(2)
Dharamshala	141	(3)
Dalai Lama	144	(5)
Letters
to Philip Whalen (1954--1961)	149	(11)
to Will Petersen (1957--1958)	160	(7)
The Practice of the Wild
The Etiquette of Freedom	167	(16)
The Place, the Region, and the Commons	183	(17)
Blue Mountains Constantly Walking	200	(14)
Ancient Forests of the Far West	214	(21)
Grace	235	(6)
A Place in Space
Smokey the Bear Sutra	241	(4)
Four Changes, with a Postscript	245	(9)
``Energy Is Eternal Delight''	254	(3)
Unnatural Writing	257	(6)
The Porous World	263	(4)
Coming into the Watershed	267	(10)
Kitkitdizze: A Node in the Net	277	(10)
The Great Clod Project
``Wild'' in China	287	(9)
Walls Within Walls	296	(17)
The Brush	313	(6)
The Paris Review Interview	319	(216)
Selections from Journals
Japan, ``Of All the Wild Sakura''	341	(8)
Australia	349	(4)
Ladakh	353	(7)
Botswana and Zimbabwe	360	(11)
Uncollected Essays
Walking the Great Ridge Omine on the Womb-Diamond Trail	371	(12)
Walking Downtown Naha	383	(4)
Is Nature Real?	387	(3)
Entering the Fiftieth Millennium	390	(9)
Riprap
Mid-August at Sourdough Mountain Lookout	399	(1)
Piute Creek	400	(1)
Milton by Firelight	401	(1)
Above Pate Valley	402	(1)
Hay for the Horses	403	(1)
Riprap	404	(3)
Myths and Texts
[from ``Logging'']
``The Morning Star Is Not a Star''	407	(1)
``But Ye Shall Destroy Their Altars''	407	(1)
``Lodgepole Pine: The Wonderful Reproductive''	408	(1)
``Each Dawn Is Clear''	409	(1)
``The Groves Are Down''	410	(1)
``Lodgepole''	410	(1)
[from ``Hunting'']
First Shaman Song	411	(1)
This Poem Is for bear	412	(1)
This Poem Is for Deer	413	(2)
``Sealion, Salmon, Offshore---''	415	(1)
``Flung from Demonic Wombs''	416	(1)
``How Rare to be Born a Human Being!''	416	(1)
[from ``Burning'']
Maudgalyayana Saw Hell	417	(1)
John Muir on Mt. Ritter	418	(1)
Amitabha's Vow	419	(1)
``Spikes of New Smell Driven up Nostrils''	419	(2)
``Stone-flake and Salmon''	421	(1)
``Wash Me on Home, Mama''	422	(3)
The Back Country
A Berry Feast	425	(4)
The Spring	429	(1)
A Walk	430	(1)
Burning the Small Dead	431	(1)
Foxtal Pine	432	(1)
Oil	433	(1)
After Work	434	(1)
Four Poems for Robin	435	(2)
Work to Do Toward Town	437	(1)
The Manichaeans	438	(1)
Artemis	439	(1)
Mother of the Buddhas	440	(1)
Nature Green Shit	441	(1)
Twelve Hours Out of New York	442	(1)
Hop, Skip, and Jump	443	(1)
Through the Smoke Hole	444	(2)
Nanao Knows	446	(3)
Regarding Wave
Wave	449	(1)
In the House of the Rising Sun	450	(1)
Song of the Taste	451	(1)
Kyoto Born in Spring Song	452	(1)
Everybody Lying on Their Stomachs, Head Toward the Candle, Reading, Sleeping, Drawing	453	(1)
Shark Meat	454	(1)
The Bed in the Sky	455	(1)
Regarding Wave	456	(1)
Revolution in the Revolution in the Revolution	457	(1)
Sours of the Hills	458	(1)
To Fire	459	(1)
Love	460	(1)
Meeting the Mountains	461	(1)
Long Hair	462	(3)
Turtle Island
Without	465	(1)
I Went Into the Maverick Bar	466	(1)
No Matter, Never Mind	467	(1)
The Bath	468	(3)
Control Burn	471	(1)
Prayer for the Great Family	472	(1)
Source	473	(1)
For Nothing	474	(1)
The Egg	475	(1)
Pine Tree Tops	476	(1)
By Frazier Creek Falls	477	(1)
Mother Earth: Her Whales	478	(2)
Why Log Truck Drivers Rise Earlier Than Students of Zen	480	(1)
``One Should Not Talk to a Skilled Hunter About What Is Forbidden by the Buddha''	481	(1)
Magpie's Song	482	(1)
O Waters	483	(1)
For the Children	484	(1)
As for Poets	485	(4)
Axe Handles
Axe Handles	489	(1)
River in the Valley	490	(1)
Changing Diapers	491	(1)
Walking Through Myoshin-ji	492	(1)
Working on the '58 Willys Pickup	493	(1)
For/From Lew	494	(1)
Getting in the Wood	495	(1)
True Night	496	(2)
24:IV:40075, 3:30 PM	498	(1)
Dillingham, Alaska, the Willow Tree Bar	499	(1)
Breasts	500	(1)
Old Woman Nature	501	(1)
The Canyon Wren	502	(2)
For All	504	(3)
Left Out in the Rain
Poem Left in Sourdough Mountain Lookout	507	(1)
Seeing the Ox	507	(1)
Longitude 170° West, Latitude 35° North	508	(1)
For Example	509	(1)
English Lessons at the Boiler Company	510	(1)
Farewell to Burning Island	510	(1)
No Shoes No Shirt No Service	511	(1)
Poetry Is the Eagle of Experience	512	(1)
Calcium	512	(1)
At White River Roadhouse	513	(1)
The Persimmons	514	(2)
For Berkeley	516	(1)
``There are those who love to get dirty''	516	(1)
Sestina of the End of the Kalpa	517	(1)
How Zen Masters Are Like Mature Herring	518	(6)
Cold Mountain Poems [Translations]
``The Path to Han-shan's Place Is Laughable''	524	(1)
``In a Tangle of Cliffs I Chose a Place---''	524	(1)
``Men Ask the Way to Cold Mountain''	524	(1)
``I Settled at Cold Mountain Long Ago''	524	(1)
``I Have Lived at Cold Mountain''	525	(1)
``In My First Thirty Years of Life''	525	(1)
``There's a Naked Bug at Cold Mountain''	525	(1)
``Cold Mountain Is a House''	525	(1)
``Some Critic Tried to Put Me Down---''	526	(1)
``When Men See Han-shan''	526	(4)
Miyazawa Kenji [Translations]
Spring and the Ashura	530	(2)
Floating World Picture: Spring in the Kitagami Mountains	532	(1)
Cloud Semaphore	533	(1)
The Politicians	534	(1)
Thief	534	(1)
Sixteen T'ang Poems [Translations]	535	(10)
Long Bitter Song [Translations]	545	(66)
No Nature
How Poetry Comes to Me	557	(1)
On Climbing the Sierra Matterhorn Again After Thirty-one years	557	(1)
The Sweat	558	(2)
Building	560	(2)
Off the Trail	562	(1)
Word Basket Woman	563	(2)
Right in the Trail	565	(2)
For Lew Welch in a Snowfall	567	(1)
Ripples on the Surface	568	(3)
Mountains and Rivers Without End
Bubbs Creek Haircut	571	(5)
The Blue Sky	576	(4)
The Flowing	580	(4)
Arctic Midnight Twilight	584	(3)
Walking the New York Bedrock	587	(4)
New Moon Tongue	591	(1)
Macaques in the Sky	592	(1)
Raven's Beak River at the End	593	(2)
Cross Legg'd	595	(1)
We Wash Our Bowls in This Water	596	(2)
Earth Verse	598	(1)
Finding the Space in the Heart	599	(6)
New Poems
Icy Mountains Constantly Walking	605	(1)
Summer of Ninety-Seven	606	(2)
``This present moment''	608	(3)
Chronology	611	(4)
Index	615