gary snyder

8/10/2019 Gary Snyder

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G RY

SNY ER

3 4

4

3

_no 3

BOISE ST TE

UNIVERSITY

BOISE IO HO


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Boise State University Western

Wri

ters Series

By Be

rt

Almon

Universit y of Alb erta

Number 37

Editors:

Wayn

e

hatte

rton

J ames H Magu ire

~ n s s

Mana

ger:

J ames Hadden

Cover

Design and Illustr ation

by my Skov Copyrigh t 1979

Boise Sta te University Boise Idaho


3/49

Copyrigh t 1979

the

Boise State University Western Writ ers Series

ALL

RIGHT

S

R

S RV

D

Library of Congress

ard

No. 7953650

Internation al Sta

nda

rd Book No. 088430 0617

Printed in th e Un ited States of America by

The Caxton Printers Ltd .

Caldwell Idaho


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I. BACKGROUND

We thought that we had conquered the land, but we di s

covered that we

had

defeated

our

selves.

Thi

s

truth

, grasped

by nature wri ters and conservationi sts of the past, has become

clear to many.

Gary Snyder s work in poetry and prose suggests

that we can conquer the self and learn to live in harmony

with the earth and each other : the newest frontier is within.

Snyder s ancestors

were

pioneers in the old sense, people who

moved

out

west to make a living or find adventure. He is a

pion

eer in a special way: he wants to move inside the self as

well as Teach out in a non-possessive way to the natural world .

As T homas J. Lyon has poi n ted ou t, the American West is the

end of wh lrman s Open Road, and the traveler must move

toward the exam ined life ohn uir p.

7 .

Snyder s Open

Roa d took

him

as far west as J apan, but he now lives in the

foothill s of the Sierras of Cal ifornia, the stat e where he was

born , in San Francisco, on y 8, 1930.

His parents were Harold and Lois Snyder. H is family has

a symbolic value for

him:

he is desc

end

ed from the pi

oneer

s

who ki lld alI the cougar and gr izzly, as he pu ts it in one

poem in urtle sland ( Dusty Braces ) , Hi s paternal grand

father was a pioneer in Kitsap, w ashi ngto n, and his mother s

Irish stock flourished in T exas, Kansas, and Colorado. Snyder

concedes in the poem that he is as restless as th e pu nchers,

mi ners, rail road-m

en

he is descended from , and he will ing ly

gives

them

the

nine bows of homage customary in the Orient.

5


7/49

for he is th eir se a roving/ tree heart ed so

n

On th e positi ve

side of thi s heri tage, he has observed

that

his Washington

grand father was an

organ

izer for th e tvobblies, or

V. V.,

th e Ind ustrial

York

ers of the

World

, the socialist and an

archistic group th at tried to organize western wor kers in the

early twen tieth centu ry. The Vobblies

and

th eir motto, form

ing the new society wit

hin

the she ll of the old: have an im

po rtan t symbolic role in Snyder s writings. The slogan sug

gests a stance that Snyder holds: the need to tr ansform socie ty

rather than to destroy it

Shon

ly after his b

irth

, Snyder s pare

nt

s moved to a farm

near Se

att

le, where th ey struggled for a living during the Great

Depression. He is fami liar wit h the h

ard

s

hip

s of farm life,

a fact to remember when considering h is p

ropo

sals for living

close to th e land . Farm work can

be

back-break ing and mind

destroying, h

ut

Snyder believes th at the severities come mostl y

in a cash

crop

economy; the sma ll, d iversified, and largely self

sufficient farm is a

not

her m

atter

. Snyder s mother had been a

wri ting st

udent

, and she enc

our

aged her son s re

adin

g. He re

m

emb

ers

tha

t the house was fu ll of socialist litera tur e

and

th at

h is mother wo

uld

read poe try to him, includ ing Browning and

Poe. A childhood injury turned h im into an

ent

husiastic reader.

At the age of five or six, he

ent

ered a burned-over field,

not

realizing that the ashes concealed live coals, His feet were so

badl

y bu rned that he was unable to walk for six months. Th is

stroke of luck, as he described it to Roland Husson in an i

nt

er

view ( Amerique, li e

Tor

tue, p. 226) , lef t him litt le to do

bu t learn to read.

His favori te books seem very

appropri

ate in retrospect

hi story and

boo

ks about Ind ians and animals. The writings of

Ern

est

Thom

pson Seton (1860-1946) were favorites. Seton, a

Canad ian na ture writer and la ter an

organi

zer of

the

American

scout ing moveme

nt

, was a studen t of Indian lore. Snyder sees

h im as a kind of secre t revolu tionary

who

changed the myth


8/49

of the whi te man because he was on the side of nature,

on

the side of the Ind ians, on the side of the unconscious, on the

side of the primitive ( Amerique, p. 226) . Anyone

who

can find a battered cop y of Seton s T he ook of Woodcraft

and Indian Lore

in the children s section of a public library

will soon discover that this book from 1912 foreshadows some

of Snyde r s themes and attitudes very neatl y. Seton glori fies

the Ind

ian

way of life as being thoroughly sane, moral, and

hea lthy, w

hil

e he condemns white cu lture. The U.S. Anny

comes in for vehement criticism because of the role of the

cava lry during

the Indi

an Wars.

Th

e A

nny

wou ld have crucified

Ch rist if orde

red

to, Seton declares. Snyder, whose love of na

tu re began when he was very young, was recep tive to Setons

p ro-Ind

ian

and pro-wild erness atti tud es. He was aware from

childhood that the Indians were the prior people and that

they, like the land , had been despoiled. By the time he moved

with h is family to Portland, Oregon, at the age of twelve, he

was able to sew moccasins and camp in the woods. In hi s teens

he took

up

mount ain climbing and quali fied for an adul t

climbing club at fift een. After the break-up of hi s

parent

s

marriage, he held a

number

of jobs - copy boy on the Port

land Oregonian for example - and was virtuall y self-support

ing while in high school.

He ent ered Portlands Reed College in 1947. Reed offers

intensive and ind ivid ualized educa tion to

it

s students, and

Snyder undertook a combined Anthropology/ Li terature major.

s

bachelor s thesis,

The Dimensions of a Myth

is an im

pr

es

sive work of scholarship which an alyzes a Haida Indian myth,

He who hunted bi rds in his father s village, f rom a number

of points of view; ant

hro

pological , sociological, linguistic,

psychological, and other approaches arc brought to bear on a

single brief folk talc to ill ustrate its r ichness as a human docu

ment. Like so many Indian stor ies, this one (from John R.

Swanton s

Haida T exts

n

Myths

pp. 264-68) con tains animal

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c

haract

ers with

human

qualit ies -

the hero marri

es a goose

maiden and deals wit h figures like Raven , Black Hear, ami

Eag le, mythic beings who will appear in Snyder s own work

and elements of the shamanistic

que

st. Snyder con siders the

intell ectual and religious meaning of a simple quest narrative

which

man

y readers would find naive and almost formless. Th is

i

ntere

st in the so-called primitive wor ld view has been c

ent

ral

to Sny

der

s poems ami essays. T he influence of American

an

thro

pologists like Pau l Rad in and Franz Boas was i

mpo

r t

a

nt

because th ese men

defended

the i

nte

llectua l powers of th e

savage a

nd

pointe

d to th e value of th eir myths and philo

sophical assumptions. In Myths T ex ts Snyder was to dram

a tize

the prim

itive

out

look as

one

remedy for the

dil

emmas

of our times.

At

Reed

Snyder began to publish

p o

in the literary mag

azine, Janus and at on e poi nt even prepared a

pamph

let which

he later decided not to issue . Robert Ian Scott has

made

these

poems available, and he has no ted the stylistic influence of Ezra

P

oun

d s Cathay

and

the wor k of

T.

S. Elio t, along wit h the

thematic influence of Robe

rt

Graves ( T he Uncollected Early

Poems of Ga ry Snyder, pp. 81-82) . The terseness of Pound

and the allusiveness of

both

Po

und

ami Eliot are certainly

pr

es

ent in the early work. Snyder has said that D. H. Lawrence s

poe try was important as an influence because it showed th at

nature poetry need no t be gent eel. Graves is a

particularl

y in

teresting p receden t for Snyder. Graves pub lished T he IVhite

Godd ess the year after Snyder

entere

d Reed.

Th

e leng thy

tr

eatise constructs an

erudit

e theory of poetry and the role of

the po

et

from such sources as Celtic tree alphabets, classical

myth, and the anth

ropolo

gical researches of Sir j ames Frazer s

T he Golden Ro ugh Snyd er has

built

an eclectic personal

phi

losophy out of Bud

dhi

st and Amer ican Ind

ian

myth an d t

hought.

Lik e

Gra

ves, Snyder believes in a muse, reveres natur e, and

a

bhor

s pa triarchal civiliza tion.

Both

wri ters like to work from a

8


10/49

van tage point outside the mainstream of w estern civifization :

Graves from Mal l

or

ca, Snyder from J apan and , more recently,

from his home at Kitkitdizze in th e Sierras.

Snyder s education needs stressing because he of ten takes

anti-intellectua l a tti tudes that can be misleading. In h is

Lookou t s

Journ

al

Earth House old

of 1952, he says

that one does not ne

ed

universit ies and lib

rar

ies/ one need be

ali ve to wha t is about, but he has always been willing to seek

knowledge from books and insti tu tio ns. He docs value ex

peri en ce and he expresses skepticism about the intellectual

heritage of

w estern

civilization.

n

Mytlls b Texts,

he

att

acks

the anc ient, meaningless/ Abstractions of th e ed uca ted m ind

and describes the usc of a ph ilosophy book as toilet paper. Lik e

Graves, he di strusts the Apollonian (intellectual) tendencies of

w estern culture, its

habit

of living so much in the ra tiona l

mind that th e natura l world is ignored or turned into mere

material for ex ploita tio n. But he is not a nihil ist, a man who

wants to trade civilization for barb ari sm.

His

pr

aise for th e

primit

ive should not be misunderstood.

On

e of th e great ad

vances in Vestern though t, an advanc e we owe to the

intel

lectu al discipline of anthropology, is the growing recognition

that there arc o ther modes of though t than abstraction , like

the concrete logic, as Claude Le vi-Strauss puts it , of primitive

peoples. Snyder p

ropo

ses that we learn from one group of

primitiv

e

cult

ur es in pa rti cular. the America n ndi an tribes,

who generally

mana

ged to live in the na tural wo

rld

without

dama

gin

g it.

Aft er gra

dua

ti ng from Reed, Snyder began

grad

ua te work

in anthropology at ndi ana Un iversit y in 1951,

but

soon dropped

out

to

pursue a career as a poet. An academic career, even

in the stu dy of oral narrati ves,

did

not offer the kin d of life

he fo

und

essentia l for writing his poems: manual labor in

the wilderness interspersed with peri od s of solitude and ron .

tempta

tio

n. l ie had alrea dy held a number of summer jobs

9


11/49

as seaman, t imber scaler, and emp loyee of

the

P

ark

Service

du ring the excava tion of or t Vancouver. Un til his trip to

J apan in 1956 he worked

at

similar jobs, mostl y

dur

ing the

summers . He was a fire lookout on Sourdough Mou ntain

in

the Mt. Baker Nat iona l Forest. H e was also a cook , a logger

for the Warm Springs Lumber C

omp

any in Oregon , a

nd

a

trail crew worker in Yosemite Nat iona l Park . He was fired

from a look

out

job in Gilford Pinchot Na tional Forest as a

securi ty ri sk. T here was no place in the Forest Service for a

man of Snyder s views and background during the McCa rthy

era.

Interspersed with th is work experience, which is reflected

in the poems of his first two books,

R iprap

a

nd yths

T exts

was formal study of Chinese and J apanese at Berkeley, 1953-56.

Snyder had decided, as he told Nathaniel T

arn

in an in ter

view, th at Anthropo logy was concern ed with understand ing

human

nat

ur e - bu t then why go to ot her peo ple, why not

stud y one s own n

ature. So . . . Zen ( From

nt

hr

opo

logis t

to In formant, p . 110) . T he Zen t

radit

ion of Budd hism often

defines itself as seeing into one s own nat ur e, and it s d is

cipline of med ita tion aims at gaining a d ear percept ion of

the self and the extern al world . Awareness is one of the basic

themes of Snyder s poetry, a

nd

one of his favored techniq ues

is to present states of awareness thro ugh strong images given

without comm ent ary. Zen also praises the life of physical labor,

an attitude that Snyder shares. T he commitmen t to Zen grew

ou t of a need to find a living sp ir itu al tradition.

will be

clear from an exami na tion of y t Texts that Snyde r con

siders the J ewish a nd Christian traditions of the w estern man

inadequate, and he finds that the spiritua l tr

adi

tions of the

Amer ican Ind ians are not reall y available to no n-Indians.

Snyd er studied the materi al on Ind ian religion available thro ugh

anthropological work, but he wan ted the kin d of r igorou s

10


12/49

trammg tha t study u nd er a Zen maste r offers. Hence his years

in Ja

pan stu dying wit h O da Sessa at Dairoku-j i monastery,

hil e

at

Berkeley, Snyder became in vo lved wit h the

lit

er

a ry scene in the San Fr ancisco Bay area. Poet s like Lawrence

Ferlinghctti, J ack Sp icer, Robert Du ncan, a nd Ke

nneth

R ex

roth had been writing in San Fr ancisco for some tim e, R ex

roths po ems, wit h their blend of Ori

ent

al references - Rexro th

is a fine transla tor of J apan ese and Ch in ese po etry -

and

descriptions of the w estern Am erican wilderness, were an im

portant influence on Snyder. W hen All en G in sberg, J ack Ker

mac, Phili p Whal en,

and

Sn yder were a

dded

to t he Bay

areas wr iters, th e r es

ult

was the San F

ranc

isco Rena issance

a nd th e launch

ing

o f th e B

eat

Generation T he crucial even t

was a po

etr

y re ad in g in 1955, presided over by Ken neth R ex

rot

h

at the Six Galler y in San Franci sco. Sn yder took

part

,

though

th e grea t eve

nt

of the readi ng was All en Gi nsberg s

reading

of Howl

J ack Kero uac s

T he Dharma Bums

1958) gives a

fictionalized descri

ption

of thi s fr uitful per iod in w est coas t

literary Iifc. I n this book Snyd er a

ppea

rs as th e exu be

rant

J aph y R yder,

II . T il

AP PR O.

C H

Up

to this time, Snyder had bee n w

or

king on the poems tha t

found their way in to

M

yt

s T exts

a

nd R iprap

T he pub

lishing hi stor is somew h a t mis leading. because

Myths

T exts

a

ppea

red in 1960, but was

writt

e n between 195 2 and 1956, while

R iprap

Sn yder s first

publi

shed boo k

1959) ,

cont

a in s po ems

written as lat e as 1958. Snyder p lans his vol umes very carefully

a nd ma y ho ld back a majo r pocm from publicatio n he be

lieves tha t it belon gs in a differen t book. The poem s in

ip rap

deal wit h a vari ety of expe r ien ces in t he wood s a nd a t sea,

wh ile M y t h s

T exis

is a u nified seq ue nce of poems in three

sections co nstituting a commentar y on

our

cult

ure and its weak

nesses. T hc work is probab

ly Snyder s fi nest achievement to

11


13/49

d

at

e. I t is an exam ple of

the

m yrhopoetic mode that he con

siders most impor

tan

t in his writing. Mu ch of his ot her work ,

as in

R iprop

is

writt

en in th e lyrical

mode

and consists of

short sensuous

poem

s that have their own power but convey

less meaning than the myths and symbolic derails of the myth

opo et ie

approa

ch . In a Statement on Poetics published in

Donald 1. All en s T he w American Poely Snyder distin

gu ishes the

two sources of human knowledge - symbols and

sense impressions (p . 421) . Sense

impr

essions are texts,

while symbols are myths. The

poe

ms in ip r p are mostly

tex ts, while the othe r collection, as its title i

mpl

ies, works on

both levels. A forest fire in

ilfyills b T exts

can be bo th a

sensory event and a symbol of apocalypse and renewal.

n

Myths 6 T exts

Snyder explores the destruction of the

American wild

ern

ess by ou r society and poses some alt

ernati

ve

att

itude

s. The des

truc

tion grows out of greed, which Buddhism

pos

tul

ates as

the

source of all suffering, and the ogg ing sec

tion of th e wor k shows greed at work. It is based OIl Snyder s

own expe riences as a logger.

Th

e H u

nt

ing sect ion offers one

alt ern ative to the grasp ing approa ch to nat ure: th e reverent

and fruga l way of life pursued by many I

ndian

tr ibes. T he

p

oet

con

temp

la tes the myth s and pract ices of hu

nti

ng peop les,

The last section, Burn ing,

pr

esen ts a Buddhist alte rnative,

the

pur

sui t of insigh t rather than sel f-

inte

rest. T he work as

a whol e is an example of the pe rsona l epic typ ical of modern

long poems.

Un

ity comes no t through pl ot , as in th e tra di

tion al e

pic

, bu t thr ough the mind of th e poet as he describes

and reflects in rever ie ( d ream, he tells

him

self)

upo

n h is

experience. Snyder s experiences include a knowledge of hi s

tory, Indian lore, Bud

dh

ist teach ings, and

in

du myths, along

with logging

and

mountain climbing, so th at th ere is a constant

interp

lay of texts and myth s as he stri ves to understand the

ravaging of

natur

e. The influence of Ezra Pounds persona l

ep ic, the Cantos is everywhe re

ap

parent. But Pound s work,

2


14/49

written over many years, never ach ieved completion, much less

un

it y.

In

spi te of Snyder s rang ing all usiveness, he sticks to a

basic theme, th e despoiling of the Ameri can wil

derne

ss. Lik e

Pound ,

Snyder believes that Occi

den

tal civili zatio n has gone

wrong, bu t th e root sin in

Myths

'

T exts

is no t usury, as

in

th e

Cantos but

the

gr

eedy assump tion that man has dominion

over nature.

Th

e ep igraph to

Myths

T exts

comes from Acts 19:27, in

which a young c

raf

tsman of E

ph

esus warns tha t the success of

Chr ist ianity will un dermine th e worship of Dian a, goddess of

the moon and woods. In Logging, Snyder also cit es E

xodu

s

34: 15, But ye shall destro y their

altar

s, break their images,

and cut down thei r groves. Snyder feels that a main source

of

the ecological cri sis is the promise in th e Bible that man will

have dom inion over th e ear th. D. T . Suzuki s essay

of

1953,

T he Role of Na

ture

in Zen Budd hism, sta tes a similar view.

Suzuki suggests th at the Biblical passage giving man rule over

na

ture is the real beginning of human tragedy Zen B dhism

P:

231) . Instead of seeing

him

self as a p

art

of na

tur

e, man

sees i t as raw ma teri al : Man makes use of it economically

wit h no sense of kin ship with it , hence with no sense of grati

tud e or sympathet ic a lia tio n (p. 235). Or, as Snyder

put

s

it , All America hung on a hook / burned by men , in

their

own prai se. An art icle by Lynn Vhit e,

Jr.

, T he H istorical

Roo ts of Our Ecologic Crisis, cited in Snyder s

Earth H ouse

Hold

makes a similar case.

H owever, Snyder is aware

tha

t othe r

cultur

es have also

tre

at

ed nature badly. C

onf

uciu s and his

man

-centered philosophy

comes in for crit icism in

il1y ths

T exts

and the poe t knows

that the mount

ain

s of China were logged without any J udea

Chr istian ra tionaliza tions. Moreover, it is impor

tant

to no te

that

there are Bibli cal passages enjoining kindness to animals and

care for th e land. Snyder s one-sided references to the s awmill

temples of J ehovah are less effective than his imaginative pre-

I


15/49

senta tion of alterna tive d ews of na ture. T he ancie

nt

Buddh ist

parabl e of the arrow suggests that it is more effective to seck

treatme

nt

for a wo

und

tha

n to speculate over the more abstruse

questions of the man ufac ture of the weapon .

T he Logging sect ion opens with a visionary passage, a

kind of prologue invok ing the coming of spri ng and the pr i

mitive roo ts of human culture. T he first line of poem I, the

morn ing star is not a star, echoes Henry David Thoreaus

alden which concludes with th e suggestion tha t for the awak

ened mi nd the sun is hu t a morn ing star According to tra

d it

ion

, Bud

dh

a gained enlighten

me

nt

when he gl impsed th e

mo rn ing star whi le sitt ing under a Bo tree. For all its stress

on destruction , \f y s exts implies that an awakening from

egot ism a

nd

greed is possibl e. T he rest of the opening poem is

a swirl of lines abou t the p lanti ng of two seed ling fir trees,

ano ther ho pefu l sign, about the May Queen ceremonies of

spr ing - which Geza Roheim , th e Freudian anth ropo logist ,

suggested were vestiges of a pre-huma

n rutt ing season - and

about the ri tes of 10, the woman beloved by Zeus. 10 serves

as a hint t ha t the di vine can enter the human worl d.

Much of the ogging section is devoted to poems about the

work of cu tting down trees, wor k that Snyder evokes in terse,

image-sharp lines. In the second poem of the sect ion, the na r

ra t

or

awakens at d awn from bitter dreams and sta rt s his work:

250,000 bo

ar

d-feet a day can be cut down by the camp. T rees

become stat istics, abstract quant ities of materia l. T he devas

tat

ion of the f

ore

st has of ten been matched by the exp loi

tatio

n

of the laborers. T he Logging poems describe the

wo

bblles

who were beaten and m

ur

dered for un ion activities, an d the

misery of those who lived in shan ties d ur ing the Dep ression .

Poem 10 con jures up the ghos t of a ragged logger who wan

ders i

nt

o the woods from a Seattle skidrow, Fifty years too

late.

Th

e logging opera tions damage non-human beings also,

4


16/49

cr

eatu

res whose lives are, accord ing to

Buddhi

sm and

North

American Indian an imism, as sacred as our own:

The

D8 tears

throu

gh piss-fir ,

Scrapes the seed-pine

chi

pmunk

s

Hee.

A black a

nt

carries an e

Aimlessly from

the

battered ground .

\ Vith laconic dryness, poem 8 goes on to tell us that Ma s

hed

bu shes make stra nge smells.

Yet th ere arc touches of

opt

imism in the section. Na

ture

has regenerative powers. When overworked farm la

nd

is aban

doned , fir trees begin to grow aga in , we are told in poem 3.

And

the lodgepole p

ine

has cones th at e

ndu

re forest fires and can

g

ermina

te afterwards. In poem 6, Snyder records his fa th er s

story of b

err

y.picking in Washing ton back in 1914. The

area

had been logged very early, bu t fine blackberries grew up

between th e stumps. The

poem

evokes the plenitud e of na

ture: we took cop per clothes-boilers, / Wash-tu bs, buckets, a

nd

all wen t picking. / We were canning for days.

Each section of

lyths

6-

T exts

ends with an apocal y

ptic

vision of change and renewal. T he bl e

akn

ess of the Logging

section leads appro

pri

ately

into

an apocalypse (poem 15) in

itia ted wit h a vision of catastrophe. Snyder uses the mythical

imagery of Hi ndu cosmology wit h its world cycles, or kalpa s.

The cycle comes to an end w

hen

Shiva, the god of destruction,

destroys the un iverse with fire. T he

Me

n who hire m

en

to

cu t groves / kill snakes,

buil

d ci ties, pave fields will be swep t

away. T he myth s say th at

torr

enti al ra ins will put ou t th e

fires and from a g erm of necessity for re-manifestation as

Hei

nr

ich Zimmer puts it in

Myths and Symbols in I ndian

r

t

nd

ivilization

(an important source for Snyde r s Hi

ndu

al

lusions) , the gods ami worl ds will be reborn (p. 18) . Snyder s

concl usion to the Lo gging

poem

s me

ntion

s th e cones of the

15


17/49

lodgepole pi ne waumg for fire and rebirth, bu t the rains will

be imagined only in the conclusion to th e entire wor k. T his

sect ion ends clegiacall y w

ith

the possibil ity of

pre

serving the

wild erness through ar t. A painter who watched th e fall of

China s ;\ I ing dynasty is

quot

ed :

T he bru

sh

May paint the

mountai

ns and streams

Though the terr itory is lost.

Snyder s L

ing poems are such a paint ing.

T he

untin

g poems presen t a less somber view of the world

and cu lminate in a less harrowing

apo

calypse. The attitudes

of hunt ing

trib

es of North America are explored in

or

der to

give a new perspective on the re la tionsh ip of man to nature.

Th

e hunter assumes that the cr

eat

ures he hun ts have a sp iri t

ual value of th eir

own

. T hey are winged people and fou r

legged people, as the Sioux shaman Black Elk would pu t it.

The hun ter prepares h imself for hi s work th rough rit ua l exer

cises t

hat

may involve fasting, sexual abstine nce,

and

pra

yers to

th e hunted anima l. He seeks to understand th e natur e of the

an imals; an d the magic he employs to assure success often in

clud es the usc of songs tha t express the na

tur

e of the prey, as

in the op ening of poem 4 of this section :

T he swallow-shell that eases birth

bro ught from the south by Hummingbird.

\Ve pu ll out the seagra ss, th e seagrass,

the seagrass,

and

it

drift

s awa y

- song of the geese.

\ Vhen the h unt is successfu l - through the willi ngn ess of the

prey to sacrifice itself for human beings,

man

y tri bes believe

ex pia tion is

made

through prayers and offerings, and every

part

of th e animal is pu t to use. In p

oem

5, Snyder describes

the

ma

king

of a spoon from

mountain

goat ho rn in a passage

16


18/49

that par

aph

r ases an account in Franz Boas Ethnology of the

Kumkiiitl

(pp. 102-04) .

Perhaps the finest works in th e section are th e poems

in

honor of bear

and

deer.

Th

e poem for bear, number 8. brings

tog

eth

er Snyder s own knowledge of bears wit h materials from

th e folklo re of severa l cu ltures. The poem tells one of the bear

ma

rriage stories found in many socie ties. A girl out picking

be rr ies mee ts a tall, da rk man who car r ies her off to hi s home

in th e m

oun

tains. He is one of those ambiguous beings in

American Ind ian mythology, a combination anim

al dei

ty/ hu

m

an

bein

g. Eve

nt

uall y

th

e girl s brothers kill her husband.

Snyder uses A. Hallowell s compend ious Bear Ceremonialism

in the Northe rn Hemisphere (pp . 49-51) , as the source f

or

th e

lines that th e bro thers call out to th e snared bear while Ma r

iu

Barbeau s Tsimshian Songs (pp. 130-31) prov ides the bear s

dea

th

song. An annota ted version of

Myths

T exts

wou ld

be very leng th y and somew

hat

ped

ant

ic. The reade r who wan ts

to become familiar with the sp iri t of Sny

der

s bo

rro

wings from

American Ind ian myth might read w

ork

s like J o

hn

Ne iha rd t s

lack l Speaks and J

aim

e de Angu lo s In dian T ales along

wi th some collections of American Indian p

oetr

y.

Poem 8. th e poem for deer. is particularly fine.

willi

am

Blak e s Auguries of Innocence tell us that

T

he wild deer.

wa n

ing here and there, / Keeps the

Hum

an Soul from Care

Snyder ironicall y echoes these lines

in

hi s accou nt of dr

un

ken

hunters who gun

do

wn a deer paralyzed by their head ligh ts.

Thi

s mod

ern

att itude is framed by

two

Ind

ian songs express

ing

the reve rence of the primitive hu nter for the dee r an d the

hu nter s willingness to dr

ink

sea water and Slee p on beach

pebb les in the rai n / Unt il the deer come down to d ie / in

p it y for my pain

Sha

man

ism plays an important rol e in the H unt ing poems.

Among many primiti ve peoples - Siberian tribesmen, Plains In

di ans, Eskimos - the shaman ha s an important social function.

17


19/49

He is the seer of the tr ibe, the visIona ry who makes dream

journeys to seek supern atural help in healing or findi ng food .

Th

e power that he gets in his visionary jou rne y often takes

the form of a magic song associa

ted

with a totem animal. T he

opening

poe

m in H u

nt

ing is call ed first shama n song and

the entire sectio n cou ld be regarded as a set of shaman songs,

the record of a poet s imaginative

jou

rn eys in q uest of powers

to

heal

a sick cu ltu re.

we

mu st learn, as p

oem

3 put s it, to

See or go blind l

Poem II , en titled songs for a four-crowned dancing hat is

based on the shaman istic myth of Big-T ail, a story from John

Swa

nto

ns

ai

da

T exts

and

Myths

(PI 296-304) , the same

book

from wh ich Snyder took the myth used in his undergraduate

thesis. T he shaman, Big

-T

ail, descend s int o the ocean in order

to meet a supern at ural be

ing

called

H

e-at-whose-voice-the

Ravens-sit-on-the-sea a nd to ga in power in the form of a magic

hat to save his people from famine. Poem I I ra ther confusingly

blends details from this myt h with images from Hi ndu stor ies

abo

ut

Prajapau , who created the

earth

and

Vishnu , who took

th e form of a boar when he saved Mother Earth from th e

depths of the sea. T he poem

pro

babl y aims at showing the

un iversality of redemptive pattern s. Heinrich Zimmer suggests

that Vishnu is a counterpar t of the bodhisattva, a savior figure

in Mahayana Buddh ism

yt

hs

P:

97) , and bodhis

attv

as are

import

ant

in the Burni ng

poe

ms.

Th

e most pl ain tive lines

in songs for a four-crowned dancing hat are spoken by the li tt le

fern women of the Big-T ail story :

what

w

ill

you do w

ith

human beings? Are you going to save the human beings?

Such sayings symbol ize the fact th

at

human life is

sup

ported

by natu re. Shamanism assumes tha t nat ural forces can work

for human welfare.

T he next two poems move from th e mythical to the textual

level to make the same poi

nt

. In poem 12, the poet describes

picking a wild app le ncar a horn et s nest. He had the smell of

18


20/49

th e mount

ain

s on him - he had been liv

ing

dose to na ture ,

therefore - and

none stung. T he succ

eeding

poem, ta

ken

f

rom

a J icarill a Apache song, describes

th

e

man

y p

lant

s, an imals,

and insects that the tri be lived on. T he catalogue of more than

forty items, ranging from deer to juniper berries, makes the

poi nt th at n

atur

e offers many possibi lities for the support of

human life.

T he Hu

nting

poems end wit h an apocalypse that recalls

Is

aia

h, a vision of all creatures living in

harmon

y. The last

poem,

num

ber 16, opens with a saying common in Buddhist

texts : How rare

to

be born a

hum

an

bein

gl

Human

ity has

great

opponu

n

ines

for achiev ing an enl i

ght

ened stat e. In this

poem, th e de

nunciati

ons th

at

closed Loggi

ng

( l\fen who h ire

men to cut groves ) are absent. Instead, the poet glorifies hu

man bir th , goes on to describe the mythical accou

nt

of

th

e

birth of the Buddha , and tosses in the iconocla stic commen ts of

the Zen master Chao-chou (778-897 A.D., who fo

und

the

story, wit h its talkin baby, tr

emb

ling universe, and rever

en t an imals, a little too sacch

ar

ine. But the myth, Snyder im

plies, expresses an import

ant

t

ru

th a

bout

the value of human

life. Snyder s vision of a world in which man and beast live

in ha

rmon

y suggests th e Bibl e, lion lying down wit h lamb :

Girls wou ld have in their arms

A wild gazelle or wild wol f-cubs

And give th em th eir wh ite milk ,

those who had new-born i

nfants

home

Breasts st ill ful l.

The meaning of such myths is compassion, Snyder tells us, and

all beings,

man

and beast alike, can be th e agen ts of compas

sion. In th e

Buddhi

st terms that he uses, all beings possess th e

Buddha nat ur e (uncultiva ted th

oug

h it m i

ght

b

e ,

all but

Coyote, the trickster god-and-buffoon of American Indian myth.

Snyder s ruling-out of Coyote as a pot

en tial Buddha is a

kind

19


21/49

of wry allusion to the Master Chao-chous other famous say

ing. When asked if a dog, ncar cousin of the coyot e, has th e

Buddha na ture, Ch ao-c

hou

repl ied ,

wu

, Chinese for

No

The repl y goes against the teaching of th e Mahayana bran ch

of Buddhism to which Zen

belo

ngs, and it is usu all y given to

beginning studen ts in a Zen

mon

astery as a first subject for

medi ta tion, or k oan. Snyder descr ibes medit a ting on

thi

s

koa n in B u

rn

ing: poem 6. In one way, Coyote, who ex

presses symbolically th e mischief and destruct iveness of th e hu

man psyche, is beyond enlighte

nment

. In another way, he re

pr

esen ts the d ivine

prin

ciple,

and

th

e same American

Indi

an

myth cycles th at describe him as a clown or tr ickster also po r

tray

him

as a creator

god

like th e H indu fi

gur

e

Pra

j

apa

ti.

T he conclusion of Hu

nt

ing has

introd

uced

Buddhi

st themes,

and the Bu

rni

ng poems explore

th

e Buddhist view of

lif

e.

The

titl

e of the section is as am

big

uous as Coyote. T he Buddhas

Fire Sermon comes to m

ind

, the address in w

hic

h the sen

ses were described as b

eing

aflame with sensory craving, an in

sight

that

Snyder finds h is own terms for: Spikes

of

new smell

driven up nostrils, and Mouth filled wi th bright fluid cold

ness /

Tongu

e

cru

shed by th e weigh t of its flavours (poem 13) .

But fire can also represent visionary transformati ons, a poss i

bility th at Snyder uses at the end of the section.

According to Buddhism, the cause of suffer

ing

is selfish crav

ing

, which can be un derstood and el iminated thro ugh medi ta

tion . The

medit

a

tor

le

arn

s th at he is n

ot

a per

man

en t b

ein

g,

but

ra

ther a com

po

site and temporary collec

tion

of m

ent

al

and physical qualities.

When

the fict

ion

of a stable ego di s

appea rs,

the non

-grasping state of enlightenme

nt

is attained.

Selfish

cra

v

ing in

the form of eco

nomi

c greed has led to

th

e

abuses that Snyder dea lt wit h in Logging. T he Bu

rning

poems describe the practice of med itation and try to give a few

glimpses of th e enlightened state. T he shamanistic descen t in

a

myth

like Big-T a il has its parallel in th e poet s descent

20


22/49

in to

mind

and body t

hrough

meditatio n, and the Buddhist

pa rallel to th e shaman who gains power to save h is tribe is the

symbolic figu re of

th

e bodhisattva (Sanskr it for e nlightenme

nt

being) w ho pl

un

ges in to the ocean of samsara (the realm

of birth and death) in

ord

er to save all sentient beings.

The descript ions of m

editat ion

, especially in poems 1, 2, 3,

II 12, often employ a

kind

of visceral imagery: the meditator

becomes aware of his body down to the level of the bones and

muscl es, even down to the cells all water / frail bod ies / Moist

ing in a quiver (poem 12) . The imagery for the levels of the

m

ind

in poem 3 is less successful, for to r

epr

esen t consciousness

pi ctoriall y is more di cult than to illustrate physical states.

But the aims of th e meditator are similar in each

kind

of med

ita tion: to real ize the composite and fluctu ating nature of sen

tient exis tence.

The

result of such a realiza tion is an awareness

of e

mp

tiness - the void.

In

Buddhism, the void is a positive

concep t, one of the three doors of lib eratio n. All of existence

is void : a sta te of flux in which

no

thing has a perman

ent

, self

su

cient nat ure.

Wh

en th e m

editato

r has an insig

ht

into

emp

tiness, he is on the way to dissolving the ego. Hence Snyder

speaks of the

e

mpty happy body / Swarming in the light

(poem

4) .

Snyder has never mad e any claims to enlig

ht

enment.

would

be aga inst the unpreten tious spirit of Zen to

do

so even i he

were enligh tened. For Zen , enlightenmen t is nothin g special:

Mo

un

t u in misty ra in, the River Che at h igh

tid

e: Things are

seen as they arc. Snyder renders

the

celebra ted li nes from Su

Tung-p o as it was no th ing special, / misty rain on Mt. Baker, /

Neah Bay at h igh tide (poem 13) . The enlightened sta te would

pr

e

sumabl

y be ineffable and beyond the rea ch of art. Snyder

wan ts to provid e at least a glimpse of it ; so he evokes an ec

sta t ic state of drug in toxicat ion in poem 5,

and

poem 8 retells

an epis

ode

from Jo

hn

Muir s

T he Mountains

t

California

Muir was sc

alin

g l\It. Ri tter and found himself at a

dead

end.

21


23/49

A higher consciousness seemed to take over his body, and he

was able to see and move wit h enormous skill

h

Mountains

of California

chap

ter

IV) .

In the mythology of the Mahayana bra nch of Buddhism

those who attai n enlig

hte

nment but ref use to e

nt

er ni rvana

arc called bodhisanvas. T hey seek the enligh tenment of all

beings. Snyde r brings a number of bod hisattvas int o h is work:

Mai treya. the fu ture Buddha; Mau dgalyayana, who descended

in to hell to save his

moth

er; and Amitabha, the

udd

ha of

Infinite Li

ght

. Ami

tabha

vowed

that

he would never become

a Buddha unless all who called upon h is name could e

nte

r a

Buddha Land of his ma

king

. Snyder provides a

modern

ver

sion of Am it

abh

a s yow in poem 10, a delightfu l prayer for

hobos an d hi tchhikers.

The

bodhisattvas can seek to deli ver all beings because they

possess the Buddha-nature d

ormant

within th em, like the seed

with in the cone of the lodgepo le p ine, or the ch rysalis in the

table leaf th

at Th

oreau ment ions in the last chap ter of

Walden

(Snyder alludes to this parable in poem 11) ,

Th

e Burn ing

section moves to

ward

images of sexual love as symbols o f sel f

transcendence, ami the ecsta tic imagery of nat ure evoked throu gh

the

desc

ript

ions of back-packing in

th

e

mou

ntai ns has a simila r

function. In

poe

m 17, the

narrator

feels

tha

t he has reac hed

the M . Sumcru L.O That is, he has climbed the mythical

mo

unta

in at th e center of th e Buddh ist - and Hi ndu - cosmos

and can serv e as a fire watcher for th e

univer

se from tha t Look

Out

post. He sees a mythical fire: the forest fire dealt with

real istically. textually, at the beginni ng of poem 17 becomes

a

dr

agon tongue that Licks th e sun : At th e end of

Afyths 6-

T exts the

poet declares, like

Tho

r

eau

, that T he sun is but

a

morn

ing star T he

ud

dha

natu

re can be aroused; the world

can be tr ans form ed in a blaze of insight.

Myths T exts is Snyder s finest achieveme

nt

to date in th e

mythopoetic

mode

. is highly organ ized

and

t

hema

tically

22


24/49


25/49

crew work of

pic

king up and placing granite stones

in tigh t cobble p

atte

rn on

hard

slab. \ Vhat arc you

doi ng? I asked old Roy Ma rchbanks . Rip rapp ing,

he said. Hi s selection of natu ral rocks was perfect

I tr ied writing poems of tough, simple, sh ort

words, with the complexity far beneath the surface

textu re. In p

ar t

the line was influenced by the five

an d seven-cha racter line Chi nese poems I d been read

ing, wh ich wor k like sharp blows on the mind . (pp.

420-421)

Veil-known

poe

ms like Mid-August at Sourdough Moun tain

Lookout and w ate r are writt en in a style so terse that they

could be mistaken for very d ose transl

ation

s from the Chinese.

T erseness is genera lly such a hall mark of Snyder s style that a

p

oem

like T 2 T an ker Blues, w

ritt

en in the sprawling Beat

manner of Alle n

Gin

sberg and J ack Kerouac, comes as a sur

pr

ise in iprap

For all th e importance of ph ysical labor in Snyde r s work,

moments of

repose and Zen-insp ired c

ont

em

plation

have eq ua l

va lue. T he poet describ es momen ts on moun tai n tops as o ften

as he describes bucking hay or pla cing cobble. Even the superb

desc

ript

ion of physical lab or in Ha y for the Horses is over

shadowed by the poignant remarks made by the speaker s co-w

ork

er a t lunchtime un

der

Black oa k/ Out in the hot corral. An

other lunch break, taken Above Pat e Valley; resu lted in one of

Snyder s best poems. T he spea ker, a tra il-crew worke r,

d is

covers arrowhead leavings all around

him

, signs that other men

worked and hu nted in the same region long before. Ami the

deer that come to the spo t to feed have created tra ils. T he

human past and present are subtly jux taposed with the timeless

rea lm of th e

an i

mals. The final line, T en th ousand years,

reverb erates because the poet has skillfully prepa red us for an

expe

ri ence of co

nt

in

uit

y as well as change. an awareness t

hat

24


26/49

acuvr ues like working and feeding have a long history in th e

Sierra Nevada. By emphasizing concrete detail s at the expense

of abstractions, Snyder cu ts

him

self off from

th

e

philo

sophical

rumi nations of Vordsworths meditations on Tin tern Abbey.

e relies on suggest ion instead.

In Milton by Firelight , th e situat ion is again one of repose

aft er w

or

k,

Th

e poet reads Milton ,

and

Satan s

ang

uished rh e-

toric , 0 hell, what

do mine eyes/ with grief behold? seems to

come off poorly after a day of working in th e mountains. Vhat

wei

ght

does such rhe

tor

ic have beside the actualities of working

with Sier ra gr

anit

e to

build

trails? Wha t use Mi lto n, a silly

story / Of o

ur

lost gene ral

par

ents, / eaters of frui t . A nd yet,

the chainsaw boy comes riding down to camp / ungry for

tomatoes

and green apples, form s of fruit ,

and

the Sier ras them-

selves will someday become a kind

of hell , dry

ami

dead, home

of the scorpion. Snyder shows in Myths

T exts that he call

value th e symbolic stru ctures of religion as much as Mi

lton

did . Hut a less M

ilton

ic style than Snyder s would be hard to

ima

gin

e, Snyder av

oid

s abstract ions and ke

ep

s h is sy

ntax

simp le.

The poem s about J apan are less effect ive

than

the on es set

in w ester n America. The poet somet imes gives interesting tra-

vel impressions,

but in most cases the exotic scenes rema in inert.

The

Ori

ent al poems in

e ack Countr products of mo re

int i

mat

e knowledge and closer involvem

ent

, are far better. The

poems abou t the tanker

pp

Greek are also compa ra tively

weak. They are casually wri

tten

and have humorous touches

tha t ch

arm

without

quit

e sat isfying. Exce

pt

for Myths

T exis

all of Snyder s collections co

nt

ain some light , even tr ivial works.

H e told me on ce in a letter that the concept of the master -

piece is a 19th centur y tire some honky

notion

, and he quo ted

a Zen saying: Every day s a good day. Zen teaches

that

pick-

ing and choosing is a mistake , because every experience is po-

ten tia lly va luable. ut the value mu st be d

emo

nstrated for a

25


27/49

poem to work. Fortunately, the percentage of successes is h igh

in Rip

p

After 1965,

the

Riprap

poem

s were

suppleme

nted by Snyder s

tra

nslations of Han-shan, a herm it poet of the Tang dynasty

whose nam e means

Co

ld Mounta in. T he

Cold Mo untain

poems were transla ted by Snyder in the 1950s as part of h is

stud y of Chinese. T hey show, he has said at a poetry reading,

the in fluence on him of the Cascade Mo

unta

ins of the North

west. Han -shari s Chinese mountain landscape and h is elusive

whimsical ways engaged Snyders imagination . The versions

are in the Poundian trad

ition

of following the spirit of the

origina l a t the occasiona l expense of th e l

ett

er ; for example,

anach ronisms (vsilvcrv

are and

car

s ) are used when the p

oet

wants to give contemporary equi valents for H an-Shan s sati ri

cal targets.

Wi th a few inter ruptions, Snyder stud ied Zen Buddhism in

J apan between 1956 and 1968. H is teache r was Oda Sesso

Roshi of Daitoku-ji Monastery.

In

1961, Snyder compil ed an an

thology of Zen tex ts in English versions with the aid of Kaner

suki Cut

etsu. T hi s collection, T he Wooden Fish is virt ua lly

unobtainable. Some of his J ap anese expe riences are reco

un

ted

in poems collected in

T he Back Country

(1968 , while others

are de

ah

with in two prose p ieces in

Earth House Hold

(1969) ,

Japan First Time Around a nd Spr ing Sesshin at Shokoku

ji T he latt er is a superb look at a training retreat held in

a Zen monastery.

In

compact and vigorous prose, Snyder p re

sents the concrete

deta

ils of

the

retreat , stressing

the

da ily r

ou

tin e ra ther than Zen thought, an approach true to th e Zen

spiri t.

Du ring h is J apanese sojourn , Snyder married for the second

time. Hi s first marriage, to Alison Oass. lasted from 1950 to

1952. The second ma rriage, in 1960, was to Joanne Kyger, a

fell ow poet. T his mar r iage ended in divorce in 1965. Snyd er s

thi rd marriage, to the J apanese writer Masa Uehara , has

had

26


28/49

gr

ea t sign ificance for his writing. M

an

y of h is

po

ems since

hav

e

dea lt with their life toget

her

and with the

ir

sons, Kai and Gen .

Both w

rit

ers lived

at

the Banyan Ashram, an

expe

rimen tal com

munity fou nded by Na nao Sakaki on Suwa-no-sc Island between

Okinawa and J apan. Snyder s stay at this Ashram, or medita

tio n center , convi nced h im that communal living as a kind of

recapturing of tr iba l life is one alt ern a tive to mod ern aliena

tion.

In 1968, th e year that he ret

urn

ed to the United Sta les,

Snyder pub lished

T he

n

ck Country

his longest work so far.

Th

e

book

is p lann ed carefully with a division of Snyder s

poems

into

f

our

sections and with a selection of h is transla tions

of \ fiyazawa Kenj i s poems as a supp lemen t. The first part , Far

\Vest, con tains poems w

ritte

n as ea rly as 1957. In t

he

me and

style, th is group ing ov

erla

ps

bo

th Myths

T exts and

Rip p

Th

e openi ng poem, A B

err

y Feast: is a lmost a reprise of M ths

6

T exts

and mo st of the other

po

ems, as in Rfp p are either

descriptions of work exper iences or poems of tra nq uil con

te

mp

la

tio

n after labo r. T he Far

w est

poem s represent

th

e

l

ite

ral back country: th e

me

ric an wildern ess.

T

he

second sect ion,

Fa

r East, coll ects poems wri tten about

Ja

pan .

Th

e major work is Six Years, a seq uence of poems

wit h on e entry for each m

onth

of the year,

plu

s an e nvoy i n

which the

poe

t rel at es hi s re

turn

to th e Un

ited

S

tat

es in 1964

for

a stint of teaching at Berkele y. T he monthly poems treat

a variety of expe r iences, ranging from d

ini

ng out to work ing in

a mona stery

to

con

t

emp

la ting pi ne trees in the snowy hi lls.

T

he

poets evolut ion of a mo re fragme

ntary

style is clear in

Six Ye

ar

s. T

he

poe

ms tend to be wri

tte

n in sh

ort

phrases

r

ath

er tha n in se

nte

nces, carrying Snyder s

br

evity one stage f

ur

th er.

T he most power ful poems come in the third sect ion, entitled

K

aii and set in

In

dia , a

ba

ckward cou

ntr

y. Snyder and

J oan ne Kyger visited India and Ceylon in 1962, a

journ

ey on

27


29/49

which they were j

oin

ed by Allen Gi nsberg and Peter Or lovsky.

An excellen t accou nt of th e tri p in journ al form , Now, Indi a,

was publish

ed

in a littl e magazine,

Caterpillar

an d a mu ch

shorter account was included in

Earth House Hold.

Snyder s

view of ndi a in his journal is remarkably balanced . H e saw

the di rt and poverty as well as the spir itua l strength of the

cou ntry.

In the Kali poems, misery dominates. Kali the Black

One, is the shakti the consort of Shiva, god of destruction .

Her depictions in art are t

err

ifying, for she wears a garland of

sku lls and ca

rr

ies a sword

or

noose. Often she is shown danc

ing on the corpse of he r conso

rt

, Shiva (see Zimmer,

il1yths

nd

Sym ols

pp. 211-15) . She re presents th e destructi ve as

pect of the grea t fema le goddess, n evi. Snyder s poems abo

ut

pov

ert

y and persona l loss in the

K

ali sec tion explore the nega

ti ve aspects of

life th at the goddess symbolizes. Bob Steuding

has poi nted out in hi s book on Snyder tha t the Kali sect ion

mix es the scenes of nd ia with the poet s m

emo

r ies of failed

love affai rs, so th

at

the sect ion becomes an expl

ora tio

n of th e

back country of th e unconscious mind : a tour of the hel ls of

the m

ind

as well as the hell of an underdeve loped country

Ga ry

Snyder pr .

12526) .

Th

e term Kal i can be taken as

an allusion to the kali yuga, the period of decl ining morali ty

ami

increasing misery th at precedes the end of a H

indu

w

orld

cycle.

n

Th is T okyo, the poet prophesies a time when the

vice and pover ty of a J apanese slum will be world-wide . T he

pessimi sm of thi s

poem

of 1956 is rare in Snyder s w

or

k,

and

it is balan ced by the next poem , T he Manichaea ns, in which

two lovers keep back the cold of the un iverse by lying in

each other s arm s like Shiva and Shakri.

And Kali is, as an aspect of th e Great

Mother

, an embodiment

of life as well as dea th.

Th

e noose and the sword can be used

to bind and destroy evil passions. In the T ann-ic cult of th is

goddess, she is reg

arded as a beneficent mo ther. H ence Snyd er

28


30/49

ends

the

section with an imit a

tion

of a

JX em

by the eighteenth-

c

entury Ind ian poet Ramprasad Sen, who, in cid

ent

all y, is men -

tioned

at

the

end of Graves T he White Goddess

Th

e poem

opens with

the

con ventional Hi ndu and uddhi st th eme that

re birth is a dreadfu l fate. The individ ual is

bou

nd to a wheel

of suffering:

Arms shielding my face

Knees drawn

up

Falling through flicker

Of womb

aft

er

womb

,

through worlds,

Onl

y begging, Mother ,

must I be born again?

ut the

Tann ic

sects of Hinduism ami

uddhi

sm teach tha t

th e suffering of the pass

ion

s can be turned into joy. Therefore,

the IX cm ends wi

th

an affir

ma

tion of life th at ends the section:

Snyder says: you bear

me, nurse me

I meet you, a lways love you ,

you dance

on my chest ami

thi

gh

Forever born agai n.

It was d u

rin

h is tri p to Indi a tha t Snyder became a close

student of

Ta

n tra, an app roach used by cert ain

Hindu

and

uddhi

st sects. He find s the T arur ic app roach of Vajrayana

( Diamond Vehicle) Buddhism. a sect of Nort hern India and

T ibet,

part

icul arl y appea ling.

alth

ough he has also studied th e

T

antri

c practices of devotees of Shiva. T antra plunges

into

th e world of experience, and

th

e practitioner takes part in

symbolic rites

that

tran smute th e w

or

d of tile passions into

an enlightened sta te. B u

ddhi

st T antra, Snyder says in

arth

H ouse H old {p. 105) , is

pro

bably the finest and most mod

ern

29


31/49

stateme

nt

of thi s a

ncient

shamanistic-yogic-gnostic-socioeconomic

view: that

mankind s

mother

is

Na tur

e and Na t

ure

should be

tenderly respected ; that

man

s

lif

e

and

destiny is

gro

wth and

enlightenment in self-disciplined freedom; tha t the d ivine has

been made flesh and tha t flesh is divine ; tha t we n

ot

only shou ld

but

do love one an ot her T ant ra bridges a serious gap in

Snyder s ou tlook. As a seeker of Orie

nt

al wisdom, he has stud

ied

Buddhi

st trad itions tha t of ten teach the tra nscendence of

th e wor ld and its pa ssions, while hi s interest in the an imist ic

attitudes

of the

Nort

h American Indian h

unt

ing tribes encour

ages a reve rence for

and

an involveme

nt

with the e

xpe

rie nt ial

world. For va jrayana, all aspects of life can be sacram

enta

l,

and all of life is i

nt

erdepend en t. Int

erd

ependence makes an

animistic view

phil

osophically pla usible: because all things

arc alive. as an

Ind

ian told J

aime

de Angulo I ndian T ales

pp. 241-42),

down

to

the

ro cks

th

emselves. all things arc sacred.

is doubt ful th at many readers will he turned int o T an n-ic

Bu

ddhi

sts by Snyder s poems, j ust as Pound s Cantos made Icw

if any conv

ert

s for Conf ucianism. Snyder s personal sy

nt

hesis

of

Buddhi

sm and American Ind ian lore is imaginative and ap

pealing, nevert heless. His grea tes t in fluen ce on

oth

er

cont

em

porary poets lies in hi s attem

pts

to make Indian lore and at

titudes ava ila ble as a s

ource

for poetry. H e offers his readers a

cha nce to enter ima

gin

at ively

int

o modes of th

oug

h t

tha

t offer

some alte rna tive views of the worl d, and that is the k

ind

of

con vers

ion

a p

oet

might desire.

T he fina l section of

h

Back Country

entitl

ed simply

Back. deals wit h his re

turn

to America in 1964. There are

tender love poems tha t come as a relief after the ha

rro

wing

poems of thwa

rt

ed pass

ion in

K ali. There are also some

ambitious long poems. For

th

e

Chin

ese

Comrad

es presents

Snyder s complex attitudes towa rd the Chinese revolution. It s

blend of detail s from the poet s yo

ut

h with simulta neous eve

nts

in China seems incon

gru

ous: Mao sta rts out for Bei

jin

g as Snyde r

30


32/49

removes a girl s brassiere. For th e V est is a better poem, a

superbly constructed view of w est

ern

culture from the clas

sical days of T hracian girls down to

modern

America, the

contemporary oil blossom on the waters, a beau tiful yet pol

lu ting pattern tha t may fade into clear water. The cycles of

Occid

enta

l history, Snyder says,

are

all form s of the same ball

bounc

e rh yme. The last long poem, T hrough the Smoke

Hole, is one of Snyder s finest works.

He

summa rizes the cos

mology of

the

Pu eblo

Indi

ans and th

en

evokes their gecgraph

ical sett ing

am

i way of li fe in a span of two pages,

Then

th e

section is brou

ght

to an e

nd

with a

po

em about an oyster feast ,

a remi nder of the po t

ent

ial beneficence of na tur e, for it offered

the feasters ALL

WE

W

ANTED

. T he book began with A

Berry Feast, we should re

me

mber.

Af ter the fou r sect ions of his own work, Snyder provides a

selection of transla tio ns from the J ap anese of Miyazawa Kenji

(1896.1933), a Buddhist poet . T he versions arc interes t ing in

th emselves and as evidence of an interes ting a nity. The J ap

anese po

et

writes about pi ne needles, da ydr

eam

ing on the trail,

wo

rkin

g in th e fi

eld

s - themes strik

ing

ly simi lar to Snyder s.

;\fiyazawa Kcn

ji s

l wate

Pref

ectur e in Northe rn J apan was just

as

much

a fro ntier area as was Snyde r s back coun try of the

American Nor thwest,

In 1968, Snyder re turn ed permane

ntl

y to the

Uni

ted States,

bri

nging with him his wife, Masa Uehara, and th eir inf

ant

son,

Kai.

The

return coinci

ded

wi th two forms of social ferme

nt:

the

ecology movement and th e attention given to th e so-called

Hi

ppies. Sny

der

had been t

alkin

g about ecology for years, and

as a

member

of the Beat Generation, he

qua

lified as a

precur

sor

of th e H ippies. He bec

ame

a

kin

d of el

der

sta tesman - in his

l

ate

thirties - for

both

movements.

He seemed a

publi

c fi

gur

e for a time, giving readings and

le

cture

s, writing art icles, and ap pea ri ng on television. T wo

works on ecology ami social regeneration , S mokey the Bear

31


33/49


34/49

on

Suwa-no-se Is

land

suggests that the tribal s

piri

t c

an

be re

captured

by

mod

ern d

ropout

s.

T he other essays explore a number of subjects, in

cludi

ng

Buddhism, wilde

rn

ess treks, books on folklore, ami Ta nker

Notes.

Two

subjects de serve special scrut iny - Snyders bel ief in

a Gr

eat

Subcu lture

and

h is ideas about poe try and the prim itive.

The

Subculture, Snyder claims, in an essay e

nt

itled Vh

Tr ibe, ha s been a part of society since the late Neol ithic, or

perhaps even ear lier. T h is is the traditi on that runs without

break from Pal eo-Siberian shamanism and Magdalenian cave

pa in

tin

g; th

rou

gh megaliths

and

Myst

erie

s, astro

nom

ers, ri

tua

l

ists, alchemists

and

Albigensians; gnostics and vagantes, r ight

do wn to olden Ga te Park. T he Subc

ultu

re has taught that

mans n

atural

being

is to be trusted and followed; that we need

not

look to a model or ru le imposed

from

ou tside in searching

for th e re nter. : The members of the Subculture ma y

have, dep end ing on the time

an

d place, practiced shaman ism,

wi tchcraft, drug-taking, yoga , Zen medi tat ion,

or

any number

of o

ther

tec

hn

iques for explori ng hum

an

possibilities.

The

quest of these seekers

aft

er illuminat ion runs counter to civil

izatio n, a result which, Snyder de

clar

es, makes

human

nat ure

suspect and ind uces the indi vidual to rely on the accumula ted ex

pe ri ence and working assump tions given by his culture.

nthro

pology, by giving a hearing to all sor ts of cult ural possib

ilit

ies,

enco

ur

ages the view t

hat

there are

dim

ens ions of li fe not un

de rstood by civilizations. Everyth ing we have

thought

abou t

man

s wel fare needs to be ret hough t. T he

trib

e, it seems, is

the newest d evelopment in the Great Subculture. we almost

uninten t ionally

lin

ked. o

ur

selves to a t

ran

smission of

gno

sis, a

potential social

order

, and te

chnique

s of enlightenment , surviv

ing from prehistoric times ( Why T ribe, p. 116) .

T he new triba lism is another term for the phenomenon of

the mid-s

ixtie

s that the press

referred

to as the H ipp ie move

men t Snyder

and

some of h is friends, such as Allen Gins -

33


35/49

berg, from the days of the Bea t Generation were

part

of the

ferment of

th

at movement, While Snyder would surely not

r

etr

act any of his claims for th e

importan

ce of the Subcul

tur

e

that he traces through history, he might not be so optim istic

in th e less e

xub

erant present. There is an overwhelmin en

thusiasm in th e ar ticles on the Subc

ulture

collected in

arth

House Hold Dramat ic social

chan

ges were underway, and

while some att itudes have ind eed changed, th e mainstream of

America n cult ure has proved resistan t to t ribalism. In his later

prose wr

iting

s, Snyder has concentrated on ecological issues in

talk

ing

about

socia l reform.

In

Poetry a

nd

the Pr imitive, Snyder sees poetry as a dis

cipline surviving from ancient t imes, as a way of get ting in touch

with

th e in ner and outer worlds. I t goes against the aliena

tion from world and self that civilization in his view encourages,

with its tendencies toward specia lization, wh ich na rrows hu

man possihiliti es, and toward valu ing th e rules of the society

over individ ual perc

ept

ion s, Like R

alph

Va lda Emerson, Sny

der assumes

that

the

poe

t is a

re

prese

nta

tive man, an e

xampl

e

of human wholeness. (In an ea rly version of Poetry and

th

e

Primitive, delivered as a lectu re at the Berkeley Poetry on

ference in 1965, Snyder refer red a

pp

rovingly to Emerson s es

say. T he Poet, in which it is claimed that a poet s tands

among part ial men for the complete man. , , . ) Snyder praises

prim it ive cu lt ures for maki ng it possible for every member

of the group to perform most of the basic act ivit ies of life:

one learns what

bod

y ami

mind

can do . I1is own poems pre

sent a wide ra nge of human activi ties. including th e kind of

physical labor th at ra rely gets into

poet

ry. Snyder asserts t

hat

the poe t must be attentive to the fundamentals of life: Poets,

as few o thers, mu st live close to the world tha t primitive men

are in : the world, in its nakedness, w

hich

is fu ndamenta l for

all of us -

birth , love, d eath ; the sheer fact of being alive.

These ideas, which can be traced back to the Romantic


36/49


37/49

is as likely to descri be grasses, bark-scale, or stones as he is to

describe mou

nta

in vistas. He is in terested in showing a world

in

flux , a world of energy vibra tions in the void.

Th

e first

poem of the book, Wave, opens with a t racing of the wave

form in severa l obj ects:

Grooving d am shell,

streakt throu gh ma

rbl

e,

sweeping down ponderosa pine bark-scale

rip-cu t tree grain

sand-dunes, lava

ow

Wave wife.

woma n - wyfman

veiled ; vibrating: vague

sawtooth ran ges pulsing;

veins on the back of the hand .

Such a passage seems at first glance to be rather obscure. Sny

der poi nt s to the wave-form as a co

mmon

patt ern in the world.

Physics tells us that is the fundamen ta l panern , in fact .

And th e image of woman represent s the wave-form, the mys

tery ( veil ed ) , the energy ( vibra ting ) and the ineffability

( vaguc - wit h a pun on the French word for wave, vague

of reality. Voman is both reality and the poetic vo ice (sou nd

is a pa ttern of vibrat ions ) . Snyde r s R egarding Wave is ind eed

ap tl y titled . Sound waves and ocean waves can be found in a

number of poems, and the image of th e muse and wife, the

wave with whom the p

oct

is joi ned in a sac

rament

al rela

tionship, is su

pr

emely i

mport

ant . Even the

birth

of the poet s

son, Kai, is conveyed through the symbol of dolphins leaping

from a wave, as Bob Steuding has po inted o

ut

Gary Snyder,

p. 139) .

uddhi

sm teaches that all things are th e voice of

the Dharma, or teaching, for those who can hear it, and the

title poem of R egarding Wave

makes this po in t: T he voice

36


38/49

of the Dha

rm

a / the voice /

now

A shimmering bell

thro

ugh

all . All

thi ngs

can

show the nature of reali ty, for all th ings

are intercon nected

and

embody the wave-form pa t

tern

.

n

terconnectedness is a major them e in th ese poems. Budd

h ism stresses

int

erdependence, and T antra

enact

s it in cere

moni

es. Nor should we ove

rloo

k th e animism of

Nort

h

mer

i

can

Indian religion, in which everything has a spiri t and every

thing has a kinsh ip

relat

ion . Snyder dramat izes

interre

lat ion

ships wit h severa l rec

urr

ent images in

add

ition to the wave

symbol. T he tran smission of seeds is on e

exam

ple, in Seed

Pod

s, Sours of the H ills, and Bea ting Wings

Li ving

beings

spread

seeds from

one pla

ce to

anothe

r ,

oft

en by acci

de

nt

- seeds caugh t in ha ir or fur. or excret

ed

after eat ing.

The

act of eating is itself an

import

an t in terchange. A food

chain by its very na ture links many beings. Poems sud . as

Song of the

Ta

ste and Shark

Meat

celebrate eati ng as a

kind of sacred act.

All the activities of life - sex. work . rest. feasting, be

aring

childr

en

- ha ve a sacramental q u

alit

y in this book.

The

act ivi

ties of commune members on Suwa-no-se Island arc described

with

intens

ity and joy in Rainbow Body, a poem whose tit le

refers to

the trans

figured stat e tha t an

adept

in the T antric

p ractices of the Vajrayana Buddh ist sect wants to atta in. T he

implicat ion of the poem is tha t the work and rest of the corn

mune members reaches toward such an ideal. The most moving

poems in th e book are the ones dea ling wit h the marriage of

Snyd er and Masa Uehara

and

wit h the subseque

nt

bi

rth

of the ir

son, Kai. Family relationships have an emo tional weight tha t

re

qui

res no knowledge of Ta

nt

ra to be fel t in full by the

reade r.

Many of the poems extend

th

e stylist ic tendencies of T he

ack Country The poet tends to use a broken line. wit h

images di

stribute

d freely

and

a

rtf

ully across the page. Some

of

the

poems

are

clusters of images ra ther th an a serie s of

gra

m

37


39/49

mati cally co

mpl

ete statements. Such practices work especially

well when the wri ter wants to deal w

ith

th e te

xtur

e and p rocess

of a ph ysical world closely exa

min

ed.

Th

ere is a lyrical

qu

ali ty

to many of the poems th at should also be no ted . Instead of

quo

tin

g American Ind ian songs. he m

ale

s up his

own

: the

second sect ion of Regarding Wave con t

ain

s six poems ori

gin

ally printed in Poetry as Songs of

Cloud

s and \Vater. The

tradit iona l t

erm

for a Zen monk is

uu

sui, li terall y meaning

cloud and w ater. In Spring Sesshin

at

Shokoku-ji, pub

lished in arth House HoldSnyder explains th e origin of th e

term:

is

ta

ken f

rom

a lin e of an old Ch in ese poem, T o

d rift like clouds and How like water. Something of the free

life of the Zen wande rer is conveyed by these poems, a nd th e

mo ti f of flowing, which plays a

major

role in the book, is

prese

nt

also. The poems celebrate clouds, landscapes. sexuality,

and the creative zest of the p

henom

enal w

orld

. Occasional

flashes of rhyme or consonance add to th e lyric qua li ty of

these fine songs of praise.

T hree sections of th e

boo

k are e

nt

itled Regard ing Wave.

The fourth and fina l section. Lon g Ha ir, docs not break

with the themes and images of th e earlier work by any means,

but it takes

up

the poet s return to the Un ited Sta tes and

ex tolls the energi es of the wild landscape. In arth House

Hold Snyder sta tes tha t Long hair is to acc

ept

, go through the

powers of

natur

e Hence th e yogins who worship Shiva, the

lamas of T ibetan

Buddhi

st sects, and th e ancient shamans all

wore

lon

g hair. Snyd

ers

Long Hair poems are an a

lTi

rma

tio

n

of the natu ral, and they had a particular socia l meaning for

American s when they were published . Long

hair

was taken

to be a

bad

ge of the Bohemian coun

ter

-cult ure, the so-called

H

ippi

es. Snyder returned to an America where the wilder

ness could still create visions of renewa l. as in All th e Spiri t

Powers Went

to T heir Danci ng Place, bu t there was simu l

ta neously the kind of anger and greed

not

ed in Snyder s poem

38


40/49

about h is re turn , In the

Nig

h t, Fri end. Still, in Poke Hole

Fishing After the March, a conserva tive roofi ng cont rac

tor

and the poet could sh

ar

e a beer and some friendly conversa

tion , and in D eer T rail s he reminds us that the ancient deer

trails are still possible

patte

rn s of movement in spite of the

freeways bu ilt across

them

.

The Long Hair section followed by a set of poems called

T arge t Pr

actice.

Th

ey show tha t the au thor realizes that wh ile

every day is a good day, not every poem is a m

ajor

effor t.

Hu t some of these casual efforts have great appeal: Look ing

for Not hing an d Some good things

to

be said for the Iro n

Age need not have been segrega ted with the near misses.

In 1972, Snyde r published a limited ed ition of poems called

Manzanita T hese poems and others were collected with a

number of pro

se p ieces as T urtle Island (1974, wh ich won

the Puli tzer Prize for that year. T he news took some time to

reach the poet in hi s J apanese style hou se at Kit kitdiu e in the

foothills of the Sierras, where he lives with h is wife ami two

sons. T he move to the moun tains ap

pr

opri

ately symbolizes

the poe ts rommiun enr to

lif

e in the American wilderness . For

years he has been making h imself fam iliar with th e geography,

geology, flora, fau na , and

h istory of the area of Nort hern Cali

f

orn

ia in which he now lives. Some of th is knowledge comes

out in

th

e Plain Ta lk prose section of T urtl e Island the

brief essay, Wha ts Meant by H ere , provides a sketch of

the region . In his essay on T he Wildern ess

he suggests that

on e role of the poet is to serve as spokesman for the mu te

beings of the wild cou

nt

ry. T hey canno t speak for themselves;

so the arts can

pro

vide imaginat ive

proj

ect ion s int o th eir lives.

Th

ere are precedents for such projections, ranging f

rom

cave

pai ntings to the corn an d deer dances of the Pueblo Indians.

Snyder, it migh t be noted , has accepted an appoin tment to the

Cali fornia Arts Council.

Th

e poems in T urtle Island are mostly conc

ern

ed with serv-

39


41/49

ing

his wild cons tit

uen

cy, by describing it lovingly, or by at

tack

ing

those who threa ten it. Poems such as A nasazi

pra

ise

the a ncie

nt

ones of the American So

ut

hwest, the

pr

e-Col

umbian Ind ians who were

u

p to } our hips in Gods, who

lived in i

ntim

ate association with natu ral forces. Unfortu

nat

ely, contemporary man is likely to leave T he Dead by the

Side of th e Road, to run down animals unknowingly on the

highways at n igh t.

Or

coyote cries may be silenced by the

government tra pper. One response to the situa tion is to try

to understand . In I

Went

into the Maveri ck Bar , Snyde r

te lls of a t ime he visited a bar in Fa

rmi

ngton, New Mexico, to

make

him

self fam iliar again with the folk ways of America, its

s hort-haired joy and roughness.

But

he leaves, ready for the

rea l wor k aga in. T hat real work involves living not in

Am

er ica, the coun try

tha

t Europeans have made at the ex

pense of the land , but on T ur tle Island, the aborigina l name

for the cont inent.

Th

e life he lives at Kit kitd izze is detai led in a number of

poems. In an age of confess ional poetry, poems in which

the author admits to serious m

ora

l or emotiona l weaknesses,

an age in wh ich a number of lead ing poets have comm itted

suicide , Snyder wants to affirm harmony and wholeness. F

ami

ly

love and tendern ess are described in T he Bath, and th e poet

even writes a Prayer for the Great Famil y, pattern ed on a

Mohawk text , expressing gra titude to the earth tbe elements,

the p lant

s, the wild b

ein

gs, the Great Sky. T his side of Snyder s

writing

help

s make

him

a c

ult

figur e; it a lso aro uses the an

tagon ism of some reviewers, who react cynically to such posi

t ive emot ion. \ Ve arc not , after all, really a ttuned to a poetry

of p raise, which may seem sentime

nta

l in the face of some of

the prob lems and horrors of the twentie th cen tury.

However, thi s poe t is aware enough of ou r losses and has

h

elp

ed to count them. He can express anger on behalf of hi s

constituency in a man ner wo

rt

hy of Vajra yana Buddhi sm, a

40


42/49

re lig ion for which anger is an in

str

uctive and pu rif ying force,

even a f

orm

of wisdom . Poems like Steak and The Call o f

the W

ih

r condemn callous

at

titud es toward o

the

r beings, and

in Mo ther Eart h : Her Whales, th e anger

get

s out of hand

ami turn s the poem into a weak harping on glib stereotypes

( robots in suits) . More effective is the first logging song

from T oward Climax, in which the practice of clear-cu t

ting forests, taking ou t everything, becomes a metaphor (or

the Vi

etna

m war :

lea r -C:IIt

Forestry. H ow

Man y people

ere ha rvested

In Vietnam?

Clear-cut . S ome

Were child ren,

Some were over-ripe.

Th

e t

erm

, cl ear-c

ut

, has mu ltiple mean ings, of course. The

poet ironically r

gary snyder

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