Axe Handles: Poems

Gary Snyder was actually the first poet I ever loved. In Axe Handles, we see him at his best: beautifully terse lines which ring true with a kind of serene clarity, complex and intuitive connections between everyday aspects of work, the land, animals, loved ones, the clarity of dreams, particular spaces at particular times (he'll often cite the location and the date from which the poem gets its inspiration) - all of it fitting together somehow, so that you go away with a wholesome feeling of the rustic and down to earth. I enjoy the way he mentally creates his world, and the markers he sets up to feel and experience the passage of time. If you are an urban dweller like me, you will soon realize the marked contrast between your world and Snyder's: his is situated alongside actual places, roads, trees, and is embodied by actual faces, stories, and hands on living. Read enough Snyder, and you will be pleasantly uprooted from your busy, day to day routine, and soon find yourself with fresh eyes in verdant land of symbols, seasons, person to person to land encounters with very little abstraction - it will be a sudden and long overdue breath of fresh air.

The cycles of life, and the cycles within our lives and those which can be experienced and observed in the world around us link the poetry in Gary Snyder's Axe Handles. Attracted by the settings of Snyder's California poems, I've been further drawn to the images and experiences described in them. "Getting in the Wood," "Working on the '58 Willy's Pickup," "Look Back," the selections in "Little Songs for Gaia" take me to locations I've experienced physically. Intellectually what attracts me is the sense of cycles perceived by the reader, and the awareness of cycles by poem's persona. "Axe Handles", the title poem, describes such a cycle: the passing of knowledge from father to son, generation to generation. While my personal experiences with the poet's philosophical framework is not as immediate as my experience with the physical settings, I am becoming more aware of philosophies other than those in the framework in which I was raised. Even with this level of ignorance of the neophyte, I experience the thrill of growing awareness when I recognize the wholeness of life experience described in the poem. The poet makes me want to understand more - a gift to me through his words. Not much of a quest so far, but I've found Snyder's memoir of his travels through India, more of his poetry, and the courage to speak with others about Buddhism and other philosophies different from my own; a modest beginning, yet a stretch for me.