I love how Snyder writes about nature and our environment. He was a visionary way ahead of his time. The non-profit Library of America just published a handsome volume of Snyder’s collected poems. It contains every one of his books as well as numerous works which appeared in magazines, journals and obscure publications.
The thing that makes this collection special is he was involved in the project and added commentaries on some of his work. Snyder studied ancient texts and was influenced by masterworks from the Far East. He writes: “The idea of a poetry of minimal surface texture, with its complexities hidden at the bottom of the pool, under the bank, a dark old lurking, no fancy flavor, is ancient.”
Snyder’s short poem “Marin-an” marks the contrast between nature and human beings struggling inside artificial worlds:
“sun breaks over the eucalyptus
grove below the wet pasture,
water’s about hot,
I sit in the open window
& roll a smoke.
distant dogs bark, a pair of
cawing crows; the twang
of a pygmy nuthatch high in a pine-
from behind the cypress windrow
the mare moves up, grazing.
a soft continuous roar
comes out of the far valley
of the six-lane highway-thousands
and thousands of cars
driving men to work.”
Here’s another favorite. The title is “Cow.”
“An ayrshire cow
playing, rubbing her horns in the grass,
in the misty soil,
at her back the pulp factory fires
scorch the night clouds.
over the low dunes
the sea booms
a brass moon
like you could scoop up and swallow
so the cow feels pretty good
playing now
tapping the fence with her horns.”
If you like that sort of thing you might love this collection. There must be a thousand poems in here!
Vick Mickunas of Yellow Springs interviews authors every Saturday at 7 a.m. and on Sundays at 10:30 a.m. on WYSO-FM (91.3). For more information, visit www.wyso.org/programs/book-nook. Contact him at vick@vickmickunas.com.
Credit: Contributed
Credit: Contributed