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

More quotes by Gary Snyder

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A great poet does not express his or her self he expresses all of our selves.
Gary Snyder
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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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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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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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All that we did was human, stupid, easily forgiven, Not quite right.
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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.
Gary Snyder
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Having a place means that you know what a place means...what it means in a storied sense of myth, character and presence but also in an ecological sense...Integrating native consciousness with mythic consciousness
Gary Snyder
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A reading is a kind of communion. The poet articulates the semi-known for the tribe.
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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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Find your place on the planet. Dig in, and take responsibility from there.
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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.
Gary Snyder
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The other side of the sacred is the sight of your beloved in the underworld, dripping with maggots.
Gary Snyder
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In Western Civilization, our elders are books.
Gary Snyder
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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.
Gary Snyder
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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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Being the Stream Meditation is not just a rest or retreat from the turmoil of the stream or the impurity of the world. It is a way of being the stream, so that one can be at home in both the white water and the eddies. Meditation may take one out of the world, but it also puts one totally into it.
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You don't want to be victimized by your lesser talents.
Gary Snyder
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In the 40,000 year time scale we're all the same people. We're all equally primitive, give or take two or three thousand years here or a hundred years there.
Gary Snyder
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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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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.
Gary Snyder