Snyder, Gary, 1930–, American poet, b. San Francisco. Associated with the beat generation of the 1950s, he lived (1956–68) in Japan, where he trained as a Zen monk. His poetry, influenced by Zen Buddhism and by Native American culture, celebrates the peace found in nature and decries its destruction; volumes include Myths and Texts (1960), Turtle Island (1974; Pulitzer Prize), Axe Handles (1983), No Nature: New and Selected Poems (1992), the epic Mountains and Rivers without End (1996, repr. 2008), and Danger on Peaks (2004). Snyder has written numerous essays, and his influential treatise Four Changes (1969) is an early expression of the environmental movement. He taught (1986–2001) at the Univ. of California, Davis.
See his Look Out: A Selection of Writings (2002); studies by K. White (1975), B. Steuding (1976), B. Almon (1979), C. Molesworth (1983), T. Dean (1991), P. D. Murphy, ed. (1990) and as author (1991 and 2000), R. Schuler (1994), and T. Gray (2006).
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