Aug 26 2011
Gary Snyder – How Poetry Comes to Me
How Poetry Comes to Me
by Gary Snyder
It comes blundering over the
Boulders at night, it stays
Frightened outside the
Range of my campfire
I go to meet it at the
Edge of the light
— from No Nature: New and Selected Poems, by Gary Snyder
/ Photo by Thelonious Gonzo /
This isn’t one of those poems that makes you giddy with its language and vision. It’s simple, even plain. But something about the image it conjures up is both haunting and inspiring to me.
Gary Snyder describes poetic inspiration as a shamanic encounter. I imagine the poet crouched before his small campfire out in the desert somewhere, with the vast black night all around him. And poetry comes, a creature of the Otherworld, shy and dangerous and unknown, drawn to the light yet keeping to shadow. Only a poet thinks to stand and turn, to walk to the edge of the well-lit world and peer into the unknown. The most dangerous poets extend a hand and say, “Welcome.”
That’s when the world is replenished with mystery.
…Anyone going camping this weekend?
|
Gary Snyder
US (1930 – ) |
Hi Ivan, love Gary Snyder, you have been sending me two (2) copies of the same poem.
Just remember to send me only one (1) e-mail.
Thank you so much. Love, Patricia
thank you Ivan…
haiku for Gabriel Rosenstock and Gary Snyder:
satori … rejoice
off course by choice
far from any bourse
Gary Syder’s poetry inspired me in two immediate ways on reading it when in my early college days growing up in northern Appalachian hills.
Encountering him in Kerouac’s Desolation Angels and subsequently finding his poetry in book stores ( it got easier back in the late 60’s) made me want to get right out to the higher elevations of the Sierra Nevadas , or any Western mountain range for that matter.
It also made me search out work by both Japanese and Chinese hermit/ mountain/wandering bhikku poets. Basically have been following that trail/road/path (you-wei) ever since. … lost in the Dakota badlands, trains through the Gobi, Sahara, Nullarbor Plain, Indonesia, Canada, north of Arctic Circle, small island S.E. Alaska, freights on the East coast U.S.,wife from northern Manchuria, 20 + years on Micronesian islands, now on gravel roads through Nevada Basin & Range country….
In my own unscholastic way off course; some more Japhy Ryder porridge please!
good night! Irene
East coast rain dancing
flight in sight
Hi Ivan,
Ah.. without any disrespect to Gary Snyder, your prose inspired me as much, if not more. You words created spirals of light in the ether around me.
Thank you
Joan
vivid and utterly from the depths of the heart of a poet!
thank you Ivan! Thank you Snyder!
My blessings!
went out for 4 days into the high Cascades. it was awesome, muscle tired and deeply inspiring, as are these words. Take care of yourself, Ivan and I look forward to more….
lydia
[…] the pressure of purpose and re-prioritize your sense of process. To read a poem is to accept an invitation. And so, before we can understand what a poem is, we need to be able to recognize what a poem […]