Introduction

These pages contain a sampling of my literary interests - but are really more a look at Gary Snyder's work. Most of the material found here was produced during a class on Snyder's Mountains and Rivers Without End offered through Stanford University's Continuing Education Program in spring 1998. The class, an offshoot of a graduate seminar taught through the Stanford Humanities Center, featured lectures and analysis on the background and the text of Snyder's masterpiece, culminating with a symposium in late May. Highlights included one class session led by Snyder himself, a circumambulation of Mount Tamalpais, and a reading by Snyder's friend and fellow poet Nanao Sakaki.

Encountering Gary Snyder

An essay on how I met Snyder's poetry.

The Geography of "Night Highway 99"

A gloss on the poem (from Mountains and Rivers), with an emphasis on the placenames. (PDF)

A "Night Highway 99" Atlas

Highway maps from 1963, showing highway before it was subsumed into I-5 (big file - 1.3 MB. PDF)