The Biography of Gary Snyder

I was born on a special day, the eighth of May, near the Bay of San Francisco

My folks were nobodies,

unless you count German/ Irish-Scotsmen

At seven, an ill-favored accident made me read, and I never stopped

My interest was voracious;

my life was placed rightfully in books

Reed College witnessed my first published poem, after I rode the sea waves

I graduated, but left my books to witness my greatest interests

Native American folks

My love of the untamed wilds of the Earth, the play of natural forces, foreign cultures,

my devotion to ancient things, my beliefs in the importance of intuition in my life-path, my openness to the validity of magic and “the unexplained”

Most of these ephemeral moments, I only touched

Hey all of you “Beat” writers! Ginsberg, Kerouac, and Burroughs!

“Three friends does not make a generation!”

so allow me to join

Circa 1955 I became more alive I shared “A Berry Feast” at the Six Gallery,

with the rest of the Dharma Bums,

The San Francisco Renaissance, alas, was not enough

I must find my own place of Zen, for that I’ll head to Japan

I like the ladies and married four times, but I grew up and won

The Pulitzer Prize

By examining the gap between nature and culture

so as to point to ways we might more closely integrate the two

Am I a romantic? Nay. They are more in love with themselves

than the world around them

Hey “Beats”, let’s do it again sometime

ERIC MARTINEZ

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