Literature and Wilderness Thought

Okay so who is the Stray Cat Gary Snyder and why am I posting his poetry. Well Glyn Maxwell has a few words that put him in perspective. Read on my fellow cat lovers:

"Snyder was born in San Francisco, and brought up in Oregon and Washington State. He received his BA in anthropology at Reed College, Portland, in 1951. His subsequent career has been a remarkable combination of the academic and the contemplative, spiritual study and physical labour. Between working as a logger, a trail-crew member, and a seaman on a Pacific tanker, he studied Oriental languages at Berkeley (1953-6), was associated with Beat writers such as Ginsberg and Kerouac, lived in Japan (1956-64), later studied Buddhism there, and won numerous literary prizes, including a Guggenheim fellowship (1968) and the Pulitzer Prize (1975). He now teaches literature and 'wilderness thought' at the University of California at Davis.
The shapes and strengths of Gary Snyder's craft were established at the outset of his career. His first book, Riprap (Kyoto, 1959), demonstrates the clarity of his seeing, his desire to crystalize moments, his striking ability to convey the physical nature of an instant: 'I cannot remember things I once read / A few friends, but they are in cities. / Drinking cold snow-water from a tin cup / Looking down for miles / Through high still air' ('Mid-August at Sourdough Mountain Lookout'). Simplicity, distance, accuracy of atmosphere: these are hallmarks of the work throughout. The laid-back, jotted-down tone masks an acute sensitivity to rhythm and, in particular, assonance. Though his formal spectrum is narrow, from terse, rhythmic observation with a resonant conclusion ('I feel ancient, as though I had / Lived many lives', 'An Autumn Morning in Shokoku-ji') to lengthy, free-associative odysseys through the American 'back country’, his territory is vast, and his resources of phrase and juxtaposition seemingly endless. Such a ranging strategy does not always pan gold from the water, but when it does Snyder comes face to face with a wide, gladdening openness, or touches wellsprings of healing profundity."

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