Quote

I never find words right away. Poems for me always begin with images and rhythms, shapes, feelings, forms, dances in the back of my mind.

Gary Snyder

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Gary Snyder
Age: 94
Born: 1930
Born: May 8
Environmentalist
Poet
Trade Unionist
Translator
Writer
San Francisco County
California
Gary Snyder
Right
Shapes
Mind
Begin
Always
Words
Dances
Never
Feelings
Rhythms
Away
Poems
Form
Images
Back
Rhythm
Find
Forms

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stay together learn the flowers go light
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All that we did was human, stupid, easily forgiven, Not quite right.
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Doom scenarios, even though they might be true, are not politically or psychologically effective. The first step . . . is to make us love the world rather than to make us fear for the end of the world.
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I don't know of any other city where you can walk through so many culturally diverse neighborhoods, and you're never out of sight of the wild hills. Nature is very close here.
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After weeks of watching the roof leak I fixed it tonight by moving a single board
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You run into people who want to write poetry who don't want to read anything in the tradition. That's like wanting to be a builder but not finding out what different kinds of wood you use.
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I hold the most archaic values on earth ... the fertility of the soul, the magic of the animals, the power-vision in solitude.... the love and ecstasy of the dance, the common work of the tribe.
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Revolutionary consciousness is to be found among the most ruthlessly exploited masses: animals, trees, water, air, grasses
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Clambering up the Cold Mountain path, The Cold Mountain trail goes on and on: The long gorge choked with scree and boulders, The wide creek, the mist-blurred grass. The moss is slippery, though there's been no rain The pine sings, but there's no wind. Who can leap the world's ties And sit with me among the white clouds?
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Thought is just an apprehension of touch.
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Burning the small dead branches broke from beneath thick spreading whitebark pine. A hundred summers snowmelt rock and air hiss in a twisted bough.
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Why should the peculiarities of human consciousness be the narrow standard by which other creatures are judged?
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O, ah! The awareness of emptiness brings forth a heart of compassion!
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When making an axe handle the pattern is not far off.
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Find your place on the planet. Dig in, and take responsibility from there.
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Sometime in the last ten years the best brains of the Occident discovered to their amazement that we live in an Environment. This discovery has been forced on us by the realization that we are approaching the limits of something.
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I try to hold both history and wilderness in mind, that my poems may the true measure of things and stand against the unbalance and ignorance of our times.
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To work on behalf of the wild is to restore culture
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Zen aims at freedom but its practice is disciplined.
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Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.
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