Gary Snyder is an American writer who is best known for his poetry. But, he has also worked as an educator, translator, travel writer, and essayist. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the American Book Award. He’s also known for his work as an environmental activist.
‘Mid-August at Sourdough Mountain Lookout’ by Gary Snyder is a beautiful two-stanza poem. In it, the speaker conveys descriptions from the top of Sourdough Mountain.
Down valley a smoke haze
Three days heat, after five days rain
Pitch glows on the fir-cones
Gary Snyder’s ‘Milton by Firelight’ is based on Satan’s comment in Paradise Lost and how it is relevant in the present time given the condition of the environment and humankind.
‘O Hell, what do mine eyes
with grief behold?'
Working with an old
Singlejack miner, who can sense
Gary Snyder’s ‘Hay for the Horses’ records the activities such as bringing hay to the barn, storing them in order, and having lunch. This piece appears in Riprap & Cold Mountain Poems (1959).
He had driven half the night
From far down San Joaquin
Through Mariposa, up the
Dangerous Mountain roads,
‘How Poetry Comes to Me’ by Gary Snyder is a thoughtful poem about receiving inspiration. The poet uses symbolism and other literary devices to depict poetic inspiration as an animal moving through the woods of his mind.
It comes blundering over the
Boulders at night, it stays
Frightened outside the
Range of my campfire
Gary Snyder’s ‘Riprap’ describes how the oddly beautiful order of nature is “a riprap of things,” set in order from time immemorial. This piece taps on the themes of metaphysics, nature, and language.
Lay down these words
Before your mind like rocks.
placed solid, by hands
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