{"id":1302,"date":"2018-10-31T23:10:43","date_gmt":"2018-10-31T23:10:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/160-the-words\/?page_id=1302"},"modified":"2024-08-01T21:46:09","modified_gmt":"2024-08-01T21:46:09","slug":"award-winning-beat-poet-gary-snyder-visits-macalester","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/the-words-november-2018\/award-winning-beat-poet-gary-snyder-visits-macalester\/","title":{"rendered":"Award-Winning Beat Poet Gary Snyder Visits Macalester"},"content":{"rendered":"

Miriam Moore-Keish \u201919<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Image<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Gary Snyder\u2014poet, essayist, member of the Beat Generation, and leader of the San Francisco Renaissance\u2014arrived on campus Wednesday, October 17 to host three events: a conversation on the fourth floor of Old Main in the morning, a poetry reading in Kagin Commons in the evening, and an EnviroThursday talk on October 18. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since his career began in the 1950s, Snyder has continued to gain momentum and attention. He and Allen Ginsberg debuted their respective poems, \u201cThe Berry Feast\u201d and \u201cHowl,\u201d at a poetry reading in October of 1955 at San Francisco\u2019s <\/span>Six Gallery.<\/span><\/i>  Snyder has since been praised by The <\/em><\/span>New York Times Book Review, The New York Review of Books, <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>The Paris Review<\/span><\/i>. Snyder received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1975 for <\/span>Turtle Island, <\/span><\/i>a book of poems and essays<\/span>. Other awards include the American Book Award, the Bollingen Prize for Poetry, the John Hay Award for Nature Writing, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, and, most recently, the Best Poems of 2018 along with our own Professor of Creative Writing Wang Ping.  <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Snyder<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In the morning, Snyder met with English students for a Q&A session. He reflected on poetry, saying, <\/span>\u201cpeople don\u2019t understand the difference between prose and poetry.\u201d He clarified that, \u201cthe difference is: you can make yourself write prose, like you can make yourself write your college papers, but you can\u2019t make<\/span>yourself write poetry. It has to come from somewhere inside you.\u201d Snyder also told students that \u201clife informs poetry, whatever kind of life you lead.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He echoed similar sentiments in the evening. Professor Ping introduced Snyder, whom she met in 1989 at the first Chinese-American Festival where she served as Allen Ginsberg\u2019s translator. She recalled Snyder\u2019s \u201cCold Mountain\u201d being responsible for her desire to start writing poetry. Snyder responded, \u201cYou have a better memory than me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Known for spiritual and ecological poetry, one can see Gary Snyder\u2019s appeal for both the English and Biology Departments. The Biology Department hosted the reading as The Engel-Morgan-Jardetzky Distinguished Lecture on Science, Culture and Ethics on Wednesday night. Snyder began the night saying, \u201cIt\u2019s been a puzzle to me the last few weeks as to what I\u2019m doing here. I was told it was a lecture, a poetry reading, I should do what I like\u2026what do I like?\u201d He decided to do all of the above. He featured some new poems which \u201cno one\u2019s ever heard before\u2026which is just as well.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Gary<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Snyder saturated the evening with moments of spontaneous humor and humanity. At one point he asked, \u201cWhat time is it?\u201d and answered <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

himself, \u201cIt\u2019s time to fire me.\u201d Snyder mused, \u201cI write about physical reality and my own physical reality is a little more frail than I thought it was.\u201d He interrupted a reading of \u201cStarting the Spring Garden and Thinking of Thomas Jefferson\u201d to ask, \u201cDo you know what an aubergine is? It\u2019s an eggplant. I don\u2019t like the nam<\/span>e eggplant so I always use aubergine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The evening featured another opportunity for questions and answers. One audience member asked \u201cHow do we deal with despair?\u201d Snyder <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

said, \u201cIn Buddhism we say everything is improving. So no need to despair! But keep dealing with the hard realities.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

English student Albert Lee \u201920 asked \u201cWhat is the role of poetry in combating climate change?\u201d to which Snyder responded, \u201cIt has no role! It probably supports climate change! <\/span>You don\u2019t ask poetry to do a job for you<\/span><\/i>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As someone who expects poets to raise voices and incite social change, I found myself struggling with his standards for poetry. If not change or a movement, what is poetry? According to Snyder, it is a break, a paus<\/span>e, an appreciation. Sometimes we can\u2019t change things. Sometimes we have to notice them. Snyder tells us, \u201cIf you want to be a poet, do not be prepared for poetry. Be alert to when you have slipped to the verge of poetic thinking and don\u2019t let it go.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Miriam Moore-Keish \u201919 Gary Snyder\u2014poet, essayist, member of the Beat Generation, and leader of the San Francisco Renaissance\u2014arrived on campus Wednesday, October 17 to host three events: a conversation on the fourth floor of Old Main in the morning, a poetry reading in Kagin Commons in the evening, and an EnviroThursday talk on October 18. […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":913,"featured_media":1445,"parent":1296,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1302","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/913"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1302"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7343,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1302\/revisions\/7343"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1296"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}