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
Never
Feelings
Rhythms
Away
Poems
Form
Images
Back
Rhythm
Find
Forms
Right
Shapes
Mind
Begin
Always
Words
Dances

More quotes by Gary Snyder

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Wildness is not just the preservation of the world, it is the world
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When making an axe handle the pattern is not far off.
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I thought, that day I started, I sure would hate to do this all my life, And dammit, that’s just what I’ve gone and done.
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Find your place on the planet. Dig in, and take responsibility from there.
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All those years and their moments— Crackling bacon, slamming car doors, Poems tried out on friends, Will be one more archive, One more shaky text.
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Thought is just an apprehension of touch.
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Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.
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The mercy of the West has been social revolution the mercy of the East has been individual insight into the basic self/void.
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You should really know what the complete natural world of your region is and know what all its interactions are and how you are interacting with it yourself. This is just part of the work of becoming who you are, where you are.
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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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Today we are aware as never before of the plurality of human life-styles and possibilities, while at the same time being tied, like in an old silent movie, to a runaway locomotive rushing headlong toward a very singular catastrophe
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My Grandmother standing wordless fifteen minutes Between rows of loganberries, clippers poised in her hand.
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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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All this new stuff goes on top turn it over, turn it over wait and water down from the dark bottom turn it inside out let it spread through Sift down even. Watch it sprout. A mind like compost.
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Forests in the tropics are cut to make pasture to raise beef for the American market. Our distance from the source of our food enables us to be superficially more comfortable, and distinctly more ignorant.
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Walking is the exact balance between spirit and humility.
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For those who can, one of the things to do is not to move. To stay put. That doesn't mean don't travel it means have a place and get involved in what can be done in that place. That's the only way we're going to have a representative democracy in America. Nobody stays anywhere long enough to take responsibility for a local community.
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Zen aims at freedom but its practice is disciplined.
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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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The best thing you can do for the planet is to stay home.
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