No Nature: New and Selected Poems

A wonderful and varied collection. Poems that range in subject from environmental issues to fatherhood to mountaineering. In reading his poetry Snyder has the appeal of addressing controversial subjects without being preachy. He seems like a cool guy who has had a really interesting life.

This book will change your view of the planet you live on and the life you live on it. Pulitzer prize winner Gary Snyder is a voice that needs to be heard (along with others, such as Wendell Berry)to balance the noise we are inundated with via tv, newspapers, etc. These poems take us beyond issues such as "patriotism" and "nationalism" or even "environmentalism" -- and on to more global and universal citizenship issues of which we all need significantly greater awareness.Gary Snyder should be on even more bookshelves than he already is.

I first heard of Gary Snyder when I stumbled across his answer to the question as to whether he would rather hear a poem by a raccoon or a possum. Snyder's answer was: "A raccoon's poem is alert and inquisitive, and amazes you by what a mess it makes. A possum's poem seems sort of slow and dumb at first, but then it rolls over. When you get close to it, it spits in your eye." I am not sure there is a clear cut answer there, but then Snyder, who received the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1975 for "Turtle Island," was first identified with the Beat movement before becoming an important spokesperson for communal living and ecological activism, so expecting him to choose between animal poems is probably a tad ambitious.Snyder's poetry embodies the open-form experimentation of Walt Whitman, Allen Ginsberg and the Beats, as well as various "naked poetry" schools and movements from the 1960s to the present. He has also been strongly influenced at times by Japanese haikus and has listed among his influential/favorite poets Du Fu, Lorca, Basho, Pound, Yeats, Buson, Bai Ju-yi, Li He, Su Shih, Homer, Mira Bhai, and Kalidasa. Called by many a "Zen poet," Snyder's work is as likely to display a sense of humor as it is to deal with theological and aesthetic elements drawn from Zen and classical Japanese culture (e.g, "Axe Handles"). Snyder's earliest poems deal with the images and experiences he had working as a logger and ranger in the Pacific Northwest, which obviously instilled in him a love for not only nature but that which is ancient and mystical (e.g, "For All"). Of course, with a poet, it is always best to let the author speak in their own voice:"How Poetry Comes to Me" It comes blundering over theBoulders at night, it staysFrightened outside theRange of my campfireI go to meet it at theEdge of the light"No Nature: New and Selected Poems" contains parts of eight earlier published books by Snyder. This particular volume, published in 1992 and nominated for a National Book Award, contains an impressive selection of Snyder's best work across his long career.

John Berryman said that the art of poetry was that of developing a personality in words. Gary Snyder is one of the most recognizable and fascinating poetic personalities of our time. Even when he is absent, he is present -- the details he chooses to focus on, the way of perceiving embodied by the poems, tell us as much about his mind ("a mind like compost," as he writes) as any work by the so-called "confessional" poets; but rather than concentrate on tawdry details and domestic crises, Snyder is more interested in the possibilities of mindfulness, the various ways of living well in the world, of carrying out "the real work". Constantly preoccupied, even obsessed, with questions of what to keep and what to throw out, where to withdraw and where to stand firm (see "Front Lines"), Snyder is engaged in the perpetual task of literature: to save what is worth saving, to make it fresh and pass it along. And his ability to find just the right rhythms and words for every situation, sensation or idea is remarkable. I admire him greatly and am grateful for his work.

if we needed anymore evidence that North Armerica should have Living Treasures much as Japan and China do, i have yet to see it! no nature is the best intro to Snyder's work there is..