Gary Snyder!

[bohonato]

Is giving a reading at Grand Valley State University!
Which is in Grand Rapids!
Which is 30 minutes away!
Friday!

And I don't think any of my friends care, so I'm sharing with you.

[Arcadia]

wow!! thanks!!!
enjoy it!!!

[jimboloco]

definately go see gary snyder
he is worthwhile for his persona
as a survivor
an elder
a bohemian with discipline
a builder of visions and dreams
why else have a creative spirit?
there has to be some recompense
beyond mere remuneration
of dollars
sense beyond cents
an affectation of sanity

We Make Our Vows Together With All Beings
by Gary Snyder

Eating a sandwich
At work in the woods,

As a doe nibbles buckbrush in snow
Watching each other,
chewing together.

A Bomber from Beale
over the clouds,
Fills the sky with a roar.

She lifts head, listens,
Waits til the sound has gone by.

So do I.
http://writersalmafrom No Nature. © Pantheon Books
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/p ... index.html

Beale Air Farce Base near Sacramento, California
where they keep these wierd high speed bombers
I forgot the name
also B-52's

plus they train Air Farce navigators there

when i was down and out in the sad years after I refused to fly tankers,
hookers for bombers,
I somehow found that poem maybe in Detroit during my urban entrappment where I lived for two years without a car, doing art at wayne state, riding the bus up and down woodward avenue, driving a taxi at nights on weekends, wearing a flight jacket in winter, drinking a lot in my apartment, seeing humanity at the best and worst, with no way forward, in isolation and alienation, I found little scraps of faith, including that poem. I saved up enough to buy a used Ford Pinto, drove it to California, it burned out coasting into Los Angeles. Hit the mountains, hitched to Oregon for the Rainbow gathering, then down to San Fransisco for some guidance at the Haight Ashbury switchboard, slept in Goldengate Park, cruised the blues festival, hitched on down to Santa Cruz, where I found the switchboard's directed campground of hippies. Stayed there for awhile, then moved into town and drove a taxi. Never made it to Snyder's Ring of Bone zendo, tho I did visit the ones at Santa Cruz and Berkely. (Mel Ash the Berkely zen teacher now is on streamline audio.) then after a year
went to NYC for drawing at art students league, then bivouacked in late winter snow by an old stone wall in New Hampshire and had visions of ghosts. hooded, urging me onward.
what pissed off paranoid alienation, beer, and exposure to the elements will do for you.Healing began in 1982, I cursed God in 1988, while living in my '81 chevy on a bridge here in Tampa Bay, then my real healing began, and continues to this day. God is compassinate, all his-her names are beautiful.
I got Snyder's Turtle Island in my library, am more fit at 60 than I was at 30.

the animals hear and let it go
something I wish I could do

well I can, in this moment,
choose to identify with the bohemian outdoorsman and the deer

davy crockett
born on a mountaintop in tennessee
now the mountaintop's done gone
sheared off for coal
another ecocide for profit
like monsanto and dow spraying vietnam
detached at the bottom line
profit margins rule

go see the old man
he will give you a smile
bring it back here and share it with us.

[stilltrucking]

I would go see him
Japhy Ryder from The Dharma Bums
You probably know that.
He always was my hero
much more than Dean Moriarity

The Call Of The Wild


The heavy old man in his bed at night
Hears the Coyote singing
in the back meadow.
All the years he ranched and mined and logged.
A Catholic.
A native Californian.
and the Coyotes howl in his
Eightieth year.
He will call the Government
Trapper
Who uses iron leg-traps on Coyotes,
Tomorrow.
My sons will lose this
Music they have just started
To love.


The ex acid-heads from the cities
Converted to Guru or Swami,
Do penance with shiny
Dopey eyes, and quit eating meat.
In the forests of North America,
The land of Coyote and Eagle,
They dream of India, of
forever blissful sexless highs,
And sleep in oil-heated
Geodesic domes, that
Were stuck like warts
In the woods.


And the Coyote singing
is shut away
for they fear
the call
of the wild.


And they sold their virgin cedar trees,
the tallest trees in miles,
To a logger
Who told them,


"Trees are full of bugs."


The Government finally decided
To wage the war all-out. Defeat
is Un-American.


And they took to the air,
Their women beside them
in bouffant hairdos
putting nail-polish on the
gunship cannon-buttons.


And they never came down,
for they found,
the ground


is pro-Communist. And dirty.
And the insects side with the Viet Cong.


So they bomb and they bomb
Day after day, across the planet
blinding sparrows
breaking the ear-drums of owls
splintering trunks of cherries
twining and looping
deer intestines
in the shaken, dusty, rocks.


All these Americans up in special cities in the sky
Dumping poisons and explosives
Across Asia first,
And next North America,


A war against earth.
When it’s done there’ll be
no place


A Coyote could hide.


envoy


I would like to say
Coyote is forever
Inside you.


But it’s not true.

The Republican in the poem seems pretty predictable, almost stereotypical, but the ironic portrayal of the ex acid-heads and their ignorance of the natural world they claim to be concerned about makes us wonder if anyone in America really cares about "the" "wild" Do Americans all want nature to reflect our reality. Do we all want to remake the world in our own image rather than accept it for what it is?

The lines "And the insects side with the Viet Cong./So they bomb and they bomb" recall the American use of defoliants in Viet Nam to deny the North Vietnamese the ability to deliver arms to the Viet Cong. Unfortunately, in the process all the animals that depended on the jungle were destroyed, and the area still "hasn’t" healed. But, hey, it is war.

In a very real sense, America seems to have declared war on the earth, "Dumping poisons and explosives" on the entire environment in order to remake it into our image of what it should be like and to serve our own purposes. It should be "bug free" and wild animals should be like the wild animals in Disney’s movies, or, at the very least, kept out of our sight.

Snyder, like Abbey, seems to feel that the loss of nature will necessarily bring with it the loss of "coyote," that special spirit inside of us that can only come from our exposure to the real "wild."

Unlike Abbey, though, Snyder is able to view America’s attempts to destroy the environment from a distance, to somehow find ironic humor in these actions. Perhaps it is absurdist humor, but laughing is better than crying, particularly when crying won’t change the situation.

Open Directory - Arts: Literature: Authors: S: Snyder, Gary

In a Dark Time … The Eye Begins to See

[Arcadia]

beautiful thread!!, thanks again!!

[bohonato]

Gary Snyder was amazing!
But due to the complimentary beer and wine, I shall wait until at least tomorrow to respond and actually post a review.
But! I've got pixxx.
And I met him.
I'll probably wait til I get my film developed.

[jimboloco]

are i an ex acid haid?
i do know one republican woman
she got lost on the way to woodstock
says that if we had known each other when we were young
we'd have had a lotta fun ;>
just has a bush-cheney bumber sticker on her car
is a messianic judeo-christian
very sweet tho
sings like a bird
but has this disconnect
she is against abortion
so
wars on kids are ok
because she doesn't pay attention

is this what is meant by
living in cities on high?

i'll stay with the low

when i see her i realise who she is
it pains me that she is so dense

coyote
bugs
paper

[bohonato]

stilltrucking When I was explaining to people who Gary Snyder was, usually they got it when I mentioned Japhy Ryder from The Dharma Bums. He is more of a hero than Dean Moriarty was for me as well.

And the Coyote singing
is shut away
for they fear
the call
of the wild.

I like that poem a lot.

jimboloco I rarely smile in photographs; I think I just end up looking like a idiot. But in my picture with Mr. Snyder, well, it was just one of those moments. That whole night, really, was one of those moments when everything is beautiful and nothing hurt.
___

Like I said, the reading was amazing. I went with two friends, Chris and Travis (we're all in the environmental group on campus, Students for a Sustainable Earth. I'm the historian, Travis is a co-chair, and Chris is a rep for the Michigan Student Sustainability Coalition) and we were horribly late.

Consequently, we missed the first reader, Stanley Plumly. I hate to admit I'm not at all familiar with his work, but I heard that we didn't miss much. From the Q&A session afterwards, he's from the University of Massachusetts (if I remember correctly), identifies as a Romantic, and is into Keats.

Anyway, we arrived just before Gary Snyder came up to the podium. He read mainly from his new work, Danger on Peaks, and talked about Japan, Kenneth Rexroth, Allen Ginsberg, wearing an earring, and naturally, assorted environmental issues.

After the reading, and the Q&A, there was a book signing, and I bought The Gary Snyder Reader to be signed along with my copy of The Beat Book, which I bought when I was 14. I chatted to a professional piano player and a grad student who taught a class on environmental literature while waiting in line. It was then that I discovered the open bar.

Being a free reading, I wasn't expecting much, but this was nice. There was free wine and beer, and not cheap free wine and beer. Cheese, crackers, fruit, caramel apples, and coffee were also provided. A LOT of cheese, crackers, fruit, coffee, wine and beer. The cheese and crackers were the only things that I ate all day, and that probably explains the rest of the evening. Anyway, I met Gary Snyder, and we talked about my copy of The Beat Book (its had a full life). The grad student then took my picture with him. Normally I don't post pictures of myself for people I don't know to see, but my excitement and love of Gary Snyder surpasses my reluctance:


After we scored all the free alcohol we wanted, we decided to lurk around Grand Rapids for a bit. Here you go:



It says ERTH IS LOVE. It seemed appropriate.

[judih]

wow!
thanks, bohonato.

[Arcadia]

I rarely smile in photographs; I think I just end up looking like a idiot. But in my picture with Mr. Snyder, well, it was just one of those moments. That whole night, really, was one of those moments when everything is beautiful and nothing hurt.

both of you have a whole face beautiful smile!!! thanks for posting it!!!

[Dave The Dov]

I like it when I can see one of our own meeting up with a well known member of the Beat Generation!!!! It's a moment you'll surely cherish forever!!!! Thanks for the pic!!!!
_________________
household budget

[jimboloco]

really
we are still a bit shy around here
and it is super to see your young smiling face with the snyderman
mercy!
a real treat!

interesting i did the link to "danger on peaks"
the reviews were mixed
one person thought thhat his poetry was elegant yet almost like prose
another thought that he was "looking down at us", arrogant
others thought his imagery was elegant

but as i have said
he is a bohemian survivor
and that counts for me
as the beats are people on the edge
who live and express a live lived from an alienated perspective
and snyderman finds joy in his rings of bone

nice to pick up on his personal vibes
and obviously you were having a contact high ,marauding thru battle creek after,

hats off to bo no hat oh
and to his studio eight friends!