Sunday 14 September 2014

Gary Snyder and the Game of Go



1 comment:

  1. Sofia Hilmer de Freitas25 September 2014 at 05:37

    I'm hardly an expert on Gary Snyder poems, having only read a few, but the ones I did read seem to be great for those moments where one just wants to spend some time in solitude.

    Snyder's poems are very naturalistic. He seems to enjoy describing nature and taking a closer look at life in general as he goes. In "Hay for the Horses" for instance, we have the following verses:

    "I'm sixty-eight" he said,
    "I first bucked hay when I was seventeen.
    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."

    Snyder's poems tend to allude to eastern philosophy and culture quite often as well. Some of the poems I've encountered have mentioned karma and spending afternoons drinking tea.

    "Afternoon at Yase" has the verse"I feel ancient, as though I had lived many lives", therefore dealing with (even if that isn't the focus of the poem) the concept of reincarnation.

    I find his poems relaxing in a way. They seem to bring about deeper concepts and thoughts almost nonchalantly; they emulate the experience of someone going for a quiet walk in the woods and returning with a deeper understand of their surroundings.

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