University of Virginia Library

Author Snyder To Read Poetry
At University Rushton Seminar

By MARGARET ALFORD

Gary Snyder, author of
"Riprap," "Earth House Hold"
and other books, will read his
poetry in Cabell Hall
auditorium Monday at 8:15
p.m. The Peters Rushton
Seminars will sponsor the
reading.

Mr. Snyder was early
associated with Allen Ginsburg
and other poets. He has since
become one of the most
respected of living poets,
among poets and readers his
own age and younger.

Born in San Francisco in
1930, Mr. Snyder grew up in
the Pacific Northwest,
receiving his B.A. from Reed
College and doing graduate
work in Japanese and Chinese
studies at the University of
California at Berkeley.

Many Occupations

He has worked as a logger,
forest ranger, carpenter, and
seaman. He lived in Japan from
1956 to 1964, living for part of
that time as a novice in a Zen
monastery in Kyoto.

Since 1964 he has lived
with his wife and son in both
the United States and Japan.

Ecology Hero

Mr. Snyder is reputed as a
symbol and hero of the
ecology movement. An early
predictor that "the soil and
human sensibilities may erode
away forever, even without a
great war," he has argued
vehemently and persuasively
that "civilization has
something to learn from the
primitive."

"As a poet," Mr. Snyder
says, "I hold the most archaic
values on earth. They go back
to the late Paleolithic; the
fertility of the soil, the magic
of animals, the power vision in
solitude, the terrifying
initiation and rebirth; the love
and ecstasy of the dance, the
common work of the tribe."

Mr. Snyder's principal
poetic works include "Myths
and Texts," "Six Sections from
Mountains and Rivers without
end," "The Back Country,"
and "Regarding Wave."