Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Gary Snyder
I haven't read a lot of Gary Snyder's work--my loss. I remember when I was an undergraduate at Illinois Central College and I took the American Literature survey course, my teacher really wanted me to read him and use him as an influence on my own work, even though I was too blocked at that time to really write anything (had I only known about Muse work . . . ). We had to do an assignment, the specifics of which now elude me, but something about reporting on a long poem or a series of short poems by an author, and Mrs. Becker paired me up with Snyder, even though she new I was very (and I mean very) conservative in my taste, being under the spell of T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and anything else that smacked of high culture, my Oz-land away from the dreary working class world in which I grew up. I suspect she thought I'd resonate with Snyder's interest in Zen, which (at that time) I was also interested in, though really, I'd always resonated more with Taoism. Anyway, I was to report on a long poem by him. I tried to read it, and maybe I even got through the whole thing. I was utterly against it, particularly the little symbols Snyder had put between sections of the poem, symbols that looked like Native American hieroglyphics; and the poem had something to do with Native American (I want to say Pueblo or Hopi) mythology. For my nineteen-year old self, it wasn't European enough, not formal enough for my taste then. But how we change: now, though I am still a Europhile in terms of art and a lover of (so-called) high culture (still my Oz-land away from the sometimes-dreariness of being an itinerant teacher), now I really love Snyder and all he stands for in American poetry; and I love his fellow experimenters, those particularly who bring into their work shamanism or Zen or whatever--that's the material I now love more than anything else. Of course I also like his form, especially his use of spaces within a line, a technique I've been using the past year or so. Anyway, reading Snyder again for this class really brought back to me how much my taste has expanded in the past eighteen years.
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Reading a few of Snyder’s poems and reading your response, I feel like I can understand Snyder a little better. When I first read his work and his little biography, I was nonetheless impressed with him. I felt like it was dull and boring, and he honestly brought nothing new to the table. Now knowing his methods are trying to get his audience to feel his position, I can appreciate the work he does. I still am not a big fan, but I also know that I can learn from his work and methods. One of the things I absolutely do like, is his Zen essence, it’s very captivating. Snyder’s ability to put the reader in the state of mind that he was in while writing the poem is truly amazing.
ReplyDeleteRegarding Snyder's use of spaces within a line, I find that it can be a useful technique when creating breaks in a poem. At first I thought to myself, "What is with this awkward spacing? It gives a weird shape to the poem." I tried using it once in one of my poems, and realized it was a useful tool at times. I sometimes feel that a line needs some sort of pause in it; one that's longer than simple punctuation such as a comma, but not as drastic like a line break. I now see the reasoning behind Snyder's techniques, and hope to incorporate them in my future writing as well.
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