Snyder, Gary

Snyder, Gary,

1930–, American poet, b. San Francisco. Associated with the beat generationbeat generation,
term applied to certain American artists and writers who were popular during the 1950s. Essentially anarchic, members of the beat generation rejected traditional social and artistic forms.
..... Click the link for more information.  of the 1950s, he lived (1956–68) in Japan, where he trained as a Zen monk. His poetry, influenced by Zen BuddhismZen Buddhism,
Buddhist sect of China and Japan. The name of the sect (Chin. Ch'an, Jap. Zen) derives from the Sanskrit dhyana [meditation]. In China the school early became known for making its central tenet the practice of meditation, rather than adherence
..... Click the link for more information.  and by Native American culture, celebrates the peace found in nature and decries its destruction; volumes include Myths and Texts (1960), Turtle Island (1974; Pulitzer Prize), Axe Handles (1983), No Nature: New and Selected Poems (1992), the epic Mountains and Rivers without End (1996, repr. 2008), and Danger on Peaks (2004). Snyder has written numerous essays, and his influential treatise Four Changes (1969) is an early expression of the environmental movement. He taught (1986–2001) at the Univ. of California, Davis.

Bibliography

See his Look Out: A Selection of Writings (2002); studies by K. White (1975), B. Steuding (1976), B. Almon (1979), C. Molesworth (1983), T. Dean (1991), P. D. Murphy, ed. (1990) and as author (1991 and 2000), R. Schuler (1994), and T. Gray (2006).

Snyder, Gary (Sherman)

(1930– ) poet, writer; born in San Francisco. He studied anthropology at Reed College (B.A. 1951), at Indiana University (1951–52), and at the University of California: Berkeley (1953–56), where he later taught (1964–65; 1986). He also studied Buddhism in Japan (1956; 1959–64; 1965–68), and was a seaman and a forester. Based in Nevada City, Calif., he is known for his association with the Beat poets and for his poetry on mystical and environmental themes, as in Turtle Island (1974).