Gary Snyder

Gary Snyder was born on May 8, 1930 in San Francisco. He was brought up and spent most of his childhood in Washington and Oregon because of the Great Depression and his parents’ divorce. In Oregon he and his family tended dairy cows, kept hens, had a small orchard, and made cedar-wood shingles. In Washington Snyder developed a strong interest in the Coast Salish people and the Native Americans of the area. Most of his poems are based around the visuals, aspects, and interests he experienced as a child in these three states. An example of a poem that was written around his experiences in San Francisco is ‘North Beach Alba’, http://www.wenaus.com/poetry/gs-alba.html. An example of a poem inspired by his Oregon life is ‘Rolling in at Twilight’, http://www.wenaus.com/poetry/gs-rollingin.html. An example of a poem written based on his life in Washington is ‘Mid-August at Sourdough Mountain Lookout’, http://www.wenaus.com/poetry/gs-sourdough.html.

He worked as a newspaper copy boy, a logger, a tail-crew member, and a seaman on a Pacific tanker. He received his BA in Anthropology and studied Oriental languages at Berkeley. For 12 years he lived in Japan and studied Buddhism while he was there. He interest in japan and India was was drove his writing career towards an entire new world. Some of his poems have high Buddhist and Asian influences in them. Some examples include, ‘For a Stone Girl at Sanchi’, http://www.wenaus.com/poetry/gs-sanchi.html , ‘The Snow on Saddle Mountain’, http://www.wenaus.com/poetry/gs-saddlemtn.html , and ‘An Autumn Morning in Shokoku-ji’ http://www.wenaus.com/poetry/gs-robin3.html.

Gary Snyder is often associated with the San Francisco Renaissance, which was a global term for the poetic activity that centered around San Francisco including visual and performing arts, philosophy, social sensibilities, and an appreciation of other cultures; specifically the Asian cultures. He is also associated with the Beat Generation, which was a group of American poets who rejected the standard American ways of life, experimented with sexual preference and drugs, and had great interests in Easter spirituality. Besides being a great poet, Gary Snyder was also a lecturer and an essayist. He has been called the modern-day Henry David Thoreau and described as an eco-writer and an eco-poet.

I picked the following poem entitled ‘Ripples on the Surface’, by Gary Snyder.
Ripples on the Surface
"Ripples on the surface of the water - were silver salmon passing under - different from the ripples caused by breezes" A scudding plume on the wave - a humpback whale is breaking out in air up gulping herring - Nature not a book, but a performance, a high old culture Ever-fresh events scraped out, rubbed out, and used, used, again - the braided channels of the rivers hidden under fields of grass - The vast wild the house, alone. The little house in the wild, the wild in the house, Both forgotten. No nature Both together, one big empty house.
Gary Snyder
Snyder, Gary. No Nature: New and Selected
Gary Snyder has a definite theme in this poem. He talks about how nature is neglected and forgotten by humanity. Humanity is the house standing alone and the wild in the house is the natural connection humans have with nature. He goes on to say that both nature and our connection with it are forgotten. Snyder uses figurative language to describe nature’s beauty and a metaphor saying ‘nature not a book, but a performance’. He has not structure or meter in his poem. Like most of his others ‘Ripples on the Surface’ is written as free write.

As a reader of Gary Snider’s work I find that we can learn a lot from these short simplistic poems. He talks about very serious earth and environmental issues in discreet and beautifully disguised ways. I admire his passion and respect for the earth that we live on and I find that his life experiences are very unique and interesting to read about. It must have been hard for him as a child since he moved from city to city within three states. To take those hardships and struggles he faced and transform them into poetry that we can hopefully obtain knowledge from and learn from is an awesome thing.

As for Gary Snyder having anything that makes him distinctly American, I would have to say that would be everything about him. He opposed all of the standard living styles of regular Americans and he strives to be unique and individualistic. Most of his adulthood was spent in the East and his writings talk more about life in India, Singapore or Japan than they do about his dairy farm in Oregon. I’m not sure if he was distinctly American in the sense that he acted like other Americans at the time, but he was more of an American than anyone else because of his passion and respect for the Native Americans, who I believe are the true and ‘pure’ Americans. So I guess that Gary Snyder’s ideas and outlooks on life made him a distinct American in every sense of the word.