Encountering Gary Snyder

Gary Snyder's name had been at the edges of my consciousness for many years. As a reader of journals such as Co-Evolution Quarterly and its successor, Whole Earth Review (later, Whole Earth Magazine), Utne Reader, Orion, and others, I would occasionally see Snyder's articles and poems, but they didn't stick in my brain, though I knew that I ought to be familiar with him. Ginsberg and Kerouc were likewise hovering around the periphery (though I had the fortune to hear Ginsberg read a number of years ago and subsequently read a few of his poems), and I had never managed to read Dharma Bums. My real introduction to Snyder came in a chance encounter with Axe Handles - at a time when I was beginning my explorations into poetry. Stanford already had a copy or two, so off it went to the annual book sale; I thought it would be a good opportunity to familiarize myself with his work. I enjoyed reading the poems out loud and they weren't difficult to understand.

In the years since picking up Axe Handles, I occasionally returned to the book for models and inspiration for my own poetry. I saw the publicity surrounding Mountains and Rivers Without End last year [1997] and knew it was time to go more deeply into his poems. I picked up a copy just before leaving on a backpacking trip in the Emigrant Wilderness and brought it along so I could share parts of it with my friends (each time I backpack, I bring something literary to share around the campfire or at sunset, most often my own stories and poems). I didn't get around to reading any poems from Mountains and Rivers until we were in the car on the way home - not the ideal venue. I can usually read cold, but I quickly began to drown in "Bubb's Creek Haircut." "Night Highway 99" wasn't much easier. The more I read, the less I knew what I was reading, or how to read it. I finished both poems gasping for breath and barely treading water. My friends had no idea what they had just heard.

I jumped at the chance to hear Snyder read in October 1997 and was overjoyed to listen to "Bubb's Creek Haircut," "Night Highway 99" and all the others that I didn't dare read for my friends. In the performance of these poems, the words didn't necessarily make much more sense, but the sounds of the words made all the difference. I could understand the poems in terms of rhythm and music. I knew how to read them myself. From those clues, I felt that I could come into an understanding of the meaning, and if that didn't work, at least I could now share their music with my friends. In the midst of a deep emotional crisis which consumed me much of the fall, I went on the road to the Eastern Sierra, landing one night in the White Mountains near the Bristlecone Pines. I sat on the ground in one of the groves and read "The Mountain Spirit" out loud. I felt as though I had come on a pilgrimage -

Evening breeze up from the flats     [it was a damn cold breeze that night]
from the valleys "Salt" and "Death"-
Venus and the new moon sink in a deep blue glow
behind the Palisades to the west,
needle-clusters shirring in the wind-
listen close, the sound gets better

The words and the act of reading them out loud comforted and excited me as I sat watching the long shadows and endless ranges of mountains in the distance. Although the Mountain Spirit didn't visit me that night, I slept easier than I had the previous several.

I decided I wanted to get closer to understanding Snyder's poetry and for the pleasure of looking closely at a work of art. I also wanted to understand how nature works in his poetry, as a way of expanding my own poetic world. Despite being strongly oriented towards nature and the outdoors, my writing had been largely focused on the great themes of European (and urban) literature, and the natural world has been largely absent. Most attempts I made had only frustrated me in the banality of the results; I didn't understand why it should be so difficult, but fortunately, I persevered and have since experienced Gary Snyder and his poetry as great models and teachers. I continue to learn a great deal from him.