Gary Snyder facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Gary Snyder
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Snyder in 2007
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| Born | May 8, 1930 San Francisco, California, U.S. |
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| Education | Reed College (BA) Indiana University, Bloomington |
| Period | 1950–present |
| Literary movement | San Francisco Renaissance, Beat Generation |
| Notable works | Turtle Island, 1974; The Real Work, 1980; A Place in Space, 1995; Mountains and Rivers Without End, 1996 |
| Notable awards | Pulitzer Prize for poetry, 1975; American Book Award, 1984; Bollingen Prize for Poetry, 1997; John Hay Award for Nature Writing, 1997; Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, 2008 |
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Gary Snyder (born May 8, 1930) is an American poet, essayist, and environmental activist. He is known for his deep connection to nature and his interest in Buddhist spirituality. His early poems were part of the Beat Generation and the San Francisco Renaissance, which were important movements in American literature. Many people call him the "poet laureate of Deep Ecology" because of his strong focus on the environment.
Snyder has won several major awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the American Book Award. He has also translated old Chinese and modern Japanese writings into English. For many years, he taught at the University of California, Davis. He also served on the California Arts Council, helping to support arts in the state.
Contents
Life and Career
Early Life and Education
Gary Snyder was born in San Francisco, California. His family faced tough times during the Great Depression, so they moved to King County, Washington, when he was two. There, they lived on a farm, raising animals and growing food.
When Gary was seven, he had an accident that kept him in bed for four months. During this time, his parents brought him many books from the Seattle Public Library. He later said this accident changed his life because he became a very keen reader. Living in Washington, he also learned about the local Coast Salish people. He became very interested in Native American cultures and their traditional connection to nature.
In 1942, after his parents divorced, Gary moved to Portland, Oregon, with his mother and younger sister. His mother worked as a reporter for The Oregonian newspaper. Gary also worked there as a copy-boy when he was young. As a teenager, he went to Lincoln High School. He also worked as a camp counselor and enjoyed mountain climbing with a youth group called the Mazamas. Climbing remained a passion for him for many years.
In 1947, Gary received a scholarship to attend Reed College. There, he met other young poets like Philip Whalen and Lew Welch. He published his first poems in a student magazine. He also spent a summer working as a seaman, which helped him learn about different cultures in port cities. In 1950, he married Alison Gass, but they separated a few months later.
While at Reed, Snyder studied the folklore of the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in central Oregon. He graduated in 1951 with degrees in anthropology (the study of human societies and cultures) and literature. His college thesis explored a myth of the Haida people from the Pacific Northwest. For several summers, he worked as a log scaler at Warm Springs, building friendships with the local people. These experiences inspired some of his first published poems. He also learned about basic Buddhist ideas and East Asian views on nature.
He briefly studied anthropology at Indiana University but left to become a poet in San Francisco. He also started practicing Zen meditation on his own. For two summers, he worked as a fire lookout in the North Cascades in Washington. Later, he worked in cable logging as a choker setter. These experiences also influenced his writing.
The Beat Movement
Back in San Francisco, Gary Snyder lived with Philip Whalen, and they both became very interested in Zen. In 1953, Snyder enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley, to study Asian culture and languages. He learned ink and wash painting and studied Tang dynasty poetry. He continued to work in forests during the summers, including building trails in Yosemite.
In 1955 and 1956, Snyder lived in a cabin near Mill Valley, California, with writer Jack Kerouac. During this time, Snyder also studied at the American Academy of Asian Studies. There, he met Saburo Hasegawa, who inspired him to create poetry that was like landscape painting. This led Snyder to begin his long poem, Mountains and Rivers Without End, which he would work on for 40 years. He also translated poems by the ancient Chinese poet Han Shan, which were published in 1959.
Snyder met Allen Ginsberg and, through Ginsberg, also met Jack Kerouac. Kerouac's novel The Dharma Bums was inspired by this period, and Gary Snyder was the model for the main character, Japhy Ryder. Many writers in the Beat movement came from cities, so Snyder, with his experience in nature and manual labor, was seen as unique. Lawrence Ferlinghetti even called him "the Thoreau of the Beat Generation."
Snyder read his poem "A Berry Feast" at the famous Six Gallery reading in San Francisco in October 1955. This event also featured the first reading of Ginsberg's poem "Howl" and helped bring the Beat movement into public view. Snyder's first book of poems, Riprap, was published in 1959.
Studies in Japan and India
Gary Snyder was very serious about studying Zen Buddhism. In 1955, he received a scholarship to train in Japan. After some passport issues were resolved, he went to Kyoto, Japan. He studied with Zen abbot Miura Isshu at Rinko-in temple. He learned Japanese and began formal Buddhist training. He also became friends with Philip Yampolsky, a scholar of Zen Buddhism.
In 1958, Snyder returned to California, traveling through many countries as a crewman on an oil tanker. He set up a meditation room in his cabin. In 1959, he went back to Japan and became a disciple of Oda Sesso, the abbot of Daitoku-ji temple. He married poet Joanne Kyger in Japan in 1960. They were married until 1965.
Between 1956 and 1969, Snyder traveled back and forth between California and Japan. He continued his Zen studies, worked on translations, and even lived for a while on a small Japanese island called Suwanosejima with a group of people. His knowledge of Chinese helped him understand Zen traditions, which came from China. He published two more poetry collections during this time: Myths & Texts (1960) and Six Sections from Mountains and Rivers Without End (1965). Much of his poetry describes his experiences working as a logger, fire-lookout, and other jobs.
In the early 1960s, Snyder traveled through India for six months with Joanne Kyger, Allen Ginsberg, and Peter Orlovsky. They visited many cities, temples, and important Buddhist sites. They learned about Indian cultures and discussed Buddhist ideas with many people, including the Dalai Lama in Dharamashala.
Kitkitdizze and Later Writings
In 1966, Snyder and some friends bought land in the Sierra-Nevada foothills of Northern California. In 1970, this land, which he named Kitkitdizze, became his home. In 1967, his book The Back Country was published, which included his translations of poems by Kenji Miyazawa.
On August 6, 1967, on the island of Suwanosejima, he married Masa Uehara. They moved to California in 1968 with their first son, Kai. Their second son, Gen, was born a year later. They built a house on their land that blended Japanese and Native American architectural styles.
Snyder's book Regarding Wave came out in 1970, showing a more emotional and lyrical style in his poems. From the late 1960s, his poetry often focused on family, friends, and community. His 1974 book Turtle Island, named after a Native American name for North America, won a Pulitzer Prize. His 1983 book Axe Handles won an American Book Award.
Snyder also wrote many essays about poetry, culture, and the environment. These were collected in books like Earth House Hold (1969) and The Practice of the Wild (1990). In 1983, his journals from his trip to India were published as Passage Through India.
In 1986, Snyder became a professor at the University of California, Davis, where he taught writing. He is now a professor emeritus.
Snyder and Masa Uehara divorced in 1989. In 1991, he married Carole Lynn Koda, who shared his interest in Buddhism and nature. They were married until her death in 2006.
In 1996, Snyder published the complete Mountains and Rivers Without End, the long poem he had worked on for 40 years. This work celebrates living in a specific place on Earth. In 2004, he released Danger on Peaks, his first collection of new poems in two decades.
Gary Snyder has received many honors for his work, including the Bollingen Prize for Poetry and the John Hay Award for Nature Writing in 1997. He was also the first American to receive the Buddhism Transmission Award from Japan in 1998. In 1995, Utne Reader named him one of 100 visionaries for his environmental and social activism.
In 2010, a documentary film called The Practice of the Wild celebrated Snyder's life and work. It featured conversations between Snyder and fellow writer Jim Harrison.
Work
Poetry Style
Gary Snyder often uses everyday language in his poems. His style is known for being flexible and using many different forms. He usually does not use traditional rhymes or strict rhythms. His poems often show a deep love and respect for nature, ancient cultures, and a desire to escape city life.
Writer Stewart Brand said that Snyder's poetry connects life and the planet with a simple style but complex meaning. This comes from Snyder's use of natural images like mountains, plants, and animals. These images can feel very personal but also universal. For example, in his poem "Beneath My Hand and Eye the Distant Hills, Your Body," he compares touching a loved one to the landscape of mountains. This makes readers feel like explorers on both a private and a grand scale. Snyder wants his readers to feel more connected to the world around them.
Snyder has always said that his interest in Native Americans and their connection to nature shaped his own feelings. He has also found similar ideas in Buddhist practices. He admires writers like D. H. Lawrence, William Butler Yeats, and ancient Chinese poets. William Carlos Williams also influenced his early work. While he enjoyed the poetry of Robinson Jeffers, who wrote about the American West, Snyder believed that humans are part of nature, not separate from it. He often explores how nature and culture can be more connected.
In 2004, when he received the Masaoka Shiki International Haiku Awards, Snyder mentioned that traditional songs, Native American poems, William Blake, Walt Whitman, and Ezra Pound were important influences. However, he said that Haiku and Chinese poetry had the deepest impact on him.
Views on Society and Nature
Snyder is one of the writers who helped change how people think about ancient cultures. He believes that these cultures were not simple or ignorant, but had deep wisdom. In the 1960s, he developed a "neo-tribalist" idea, which is a positive way of looking at how people can live together in communities, similar to ancient tribes.
Todd Ensign describes Snyder's ideas as a mix of old tribal beliefs, philosophy, physical activity, and nature, combined with politics. This creates his unique form of modern environmentalism. Snyder does not see nature and humans as being against each other. Instead, he writes from many different viewpoints, aiming to bring about change by highlighting environmental problems.
Connection to the Beat Movement
Gary Snyder is often considered a member of the Beat Generation, a group of writers from the 1950s. He read his poetry at the famous Six Gallery reading event, and he was a key inspiration for a character in Jack Kerouac's popular novel, The Dharma Bums.
Some critics argue that Snyder's connection to the Beats is sometimes overemphasized, and that he might fit better with the San Francisco Renaissance, another literary movement that developed around the same time. Snyder himself has some thoughts about the "Beat" label but doesn't strongly object to it. He often talks about the Beats using "we" and "us."
In a 1974 interview, Snyder explained that the original group of friends, including Allen Ginsberg, Michael McClure, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Philip Whalen, and Lew Welch, shared a common vision. He noted that they later came together again, especially as Allen Ginsberg became interested in Eastern thought and Buddhism. Snyder felt they were united by strong environmental concerns, a critique of the modern state, shared poetic ideas, and a basic agreement on Buddhist views of human nature.
Snyder also said that "Beat" might be better used for a smaller group of writers directly around Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. However, he added that "beat can also be defined as a particular state of mind... and I was in that mind for a while."
See also
In Spanish: Gary Snyder para niños
