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Inspired by the ancient Chinese proverb, "There's nothing you can
own that can't be left out in the rain," this collection charts the
journeys of the poet from 1947 to 1985. This book is unique among
Gary Snyder's numerable works, and the poems contained here are as
broad in style as the compilation is in timeframe. With a new
introduction by the author, "Left Out in the Rain" captures the
evolution of the poet and the man.
Readers will travel with Snyder from the American West to the Far
East. From Berkeley to Kyoto, his imagery provides insight into the
natural world as well as the human experience. With the span of a
few words, Snyder can reveal a universe and then two pages later
deftly handle a villanelle. Sensual, sardonic, meditative,
epigrammatic, formalist--whatever the tone or structure, these
poems all bear the indelible stamp of a master. Always evocative,
they remind us why Snyder is one of our most heralded and beloved
contemporary poets.
In 1962, after studying Buddhism in Japan, Gary Snyder, with his
former wife, the poet Joanne Kyger, joined Allen Ginsberg and his
companion Peter Orlovsky for a long trip to India "to see the
hearth-land of the Buddha's teachings." As always, Snyder kept
extensive journals of his travels and, in this particular case,
also wrote the whole account in one long letter to his sister.
Passage Through India brings both together in celebration of and
reverence for India and its teachings. As Snyder writes in his
original preface, "I honor India for many things: those neolithic
cattle breeders who sang daily songs of love to God and Cow, as a
family, and whose singing is echoed even today . . . The finest
love poetry and love sculpture on earth . . . But most, the
spectacle of a high civilization that accomplished art, literature,
and ceremony without imposing a narrow version of itself on every
tribe and village." Complete with over eighty photos from Snyder's
personal collection, Passage Through India is an opportunity to
join one of our most heralded and beloved poets on a great
spiritual journey under "an eternal sky of stars, and on a
beginningless earth."
Ruth Fuller Sasaki, who died in 1967, was a pivotal figure in the
emergence and development of Zen Buddhism in the United States. She
is the only Westerner--and the only woman--to be made a priest of a
Daitoku-ji temple and was mentor to Burton Watson, Philip
Yampolsky, and Gary Snyder, and mother-in-law of Alan Watts. This
is the first biography of her remarkable life.
Few devoted their lives to Zen Buddhism as Ruth Fuller did. As a
senior student of Sokei-an Sasaki in New York, Ruth helped him
develop the infrastructure of what would eventually become The
First Zen Institute in New York City. She married Sasaki in 1944,
and it was her mission to maintain The First Zen Institute and
later, to establish The First Zen Institute of America in Japan.
Her legacy remains today in the Zen facilities she helped build in
New York and abroad and in the many texts she saw through
translation, published from the 1950s to the 1970s. For the first
time in book form, three of her writings are included here--"Zen: A
Religion", "Zen: A Method for Religious Awakening", and "Rinzai Zen
Study for Foreigners in Japan".
This important exploration of Chinese mythology focuses on the
diverse and evocative associations between women and water in the
literature of the T'ang dynasty as well as in the enormous
classical canon it inherited. By extension, it peers from medieval
China back into the mists of ancient days, when snake queens, river
goddesses, and dragon ladies ruled over the vast seas, great river
courses, and heavenly sources of water, deities who had to be
placated by shaman intercessors chanting hymns lost even by the
T'ang. As with his other notable works, Professor Schafer's
meticulous researches into the material culture of the past,
coupled with a delightful writing style, allow us to better
appreciate the literature of the T'ang by clarifying important
contemporaneous symbols of fertility, mutability, and power,
including the wondrous and ubiquitous dragon.
Poetry. Asian Studies. Translated from the Japanese by Soiku
Shigematsu. This volume collects the pithy phrases handed down
through a distinguished line of Chines and Japanese Zen masters
that comprise the essence of Zen. First compiled in the 16th and
17th century Japan, the sayings range from the profound to the
mystifying to the comical. A ZEN FOREST, according to the Gary
Snyder, the author of the preface, is the meeting place of the
highest and the most humble: the great poets and the old women's
sayings'."
These Pulitzer Prize-winning poems and essays by the author of No
Nature range from the lucid, lyrical, and mystical to the
political. All, however, share a common vision: a rediscovery of
North America and the ways by which we might become true natives of
the land for the first time.
"As a poet," Snyder tells us, "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 intuition and rebirth; the love and ecstasy of the
dance, the common work of the tribe." He develops, as replacement
for shattered social structures. a concept of tribal tradition
which could lead to "growth and enlightenment in self-disciplined
freedom. Whatever it is or ever was in any other culture can be
reconstructed from the unconscious through meditation...the coming
revolution will close the circle and link us in many ways with the
most creative aspects of our archaic past."
***This paperback edition has a new introduction by the author and
updated content.
This is the first volume of North Atlantic Books' updated paperback
edition of Dale Pendell's "Pharmako" trilogy, an encyclopedic study
of the history and uses of psychoactive plants and related
synthetics first published between 1995 and 2005. The books form an
interrelated suite of works that provide the reader with a unique,
reliable, and often personal immersion in this medically,
culturally, and spiritually fascinating subject. All three books
are beautifully designed and illustrated, and are written with
unparalleled authority, erudition, playfulness, and range.
"Pharmako/Poeia: Plant Powers, Poisons, and Herbcraft "includes a
new introduction by the author and as in previous editions focuses
on familiar psychoactive plant-derived substances and related
synthetics, ranging from the licit (tobacco, alcohol) to the
illicit (cannabis, opium) and the exotic (absinthe, salvia
divinorum, nitrous oxide). Each substance is explored in detail,
not only with information on its history, pharmacology,
preparation, and cultural and esoteric correspondences, but also
the subtleties of each plant's effect on consciousness in a way
that only poets can do. The whole concoction is sprinkled with
abundant quotations from famous writers, creating a literary brew
as intoxicating as its subject.
The "Pharmako" series is continued in "Pharmako/Dynamis" (focusing
on stimulants and empathogens) and "Pharmako/Gnosis "(which
addresses psychedelics and shamanic plants).
In this thoughtful, affectionate collection of interviews and
letters spanning three decades, beloved poet Gary Snyder talks with
South African writer and scholar Julia Martin. Over this period
many things changed decisively--globally, locally, and in their
personal lives--and these changing conditions provide the back
story for a long conversation. It begins in the early 1980s as an
intellectual exchange between an earnest graduate student and a
generous distinguished writer, and becomes a long-distance
friendship and an exploration of spiritual practice.
At the project's heart is Snyder's understanding of Buddhism. Again
and again, the conversations return to an explication of the
teachings. Snyder's characteristic approach is to articulate a
direct experience of Buddhist practice rather than any kind of
abstract philosophy. In the version he describes here, this
practice finds expression not primarily as an Asian import or a
monastic ideal, but in the specificities of a householder's life as
lived creatively in a particular location at a particular moment in
history. This means that whatever "topic" a dialogue explores,
there is a sense that all of it is about practice--the
spiritual-social practice of a contemporary poet.
This collection is made up of four sections: "Far West"--poems of
the Western mountain country where, as a young man. Gary Snyder
worked as a logger and forest ranger; "Far East"--poems written
between 1956 and 1964 in Japan where he studied Zen at the
monastery in Kyoto; "Kali"--poems inspired by a visit to India and
his reading of Indian religious texts, particularly those of
Shivaism and Tibetan Buddhism; and "Back"--poems done on his return
to this country in 1964 which look again at our West with the eyes
of India and Japan. The book concludes with a group of translations
of the Japanese poet Miyazawa Kenji (1896-1933), with whose work
Snyder feels a close affinity. The title, The Back Country, has
three major associations; wilderness. the "backward" countries, and
the "back country" of the mind with its levels of being in the
unconscious.
As an especially beautiful and pure example of the archaic epic
styles that were once current among the hunting and fishing peoples
of northern Asia, the Ainu epic folklore is of immense literary
value. This collection and English translation by Donald Philippi
contains thirty-three representative selections from a number of
epic genres including mythic epics, culture hero epics, women's
epics, and heroic epics. This is the first time, outside of Japan,
that the Ainu epic folklore has been treated in a comprehensive
manner. Originally published in 1979. The Princeton Legacy Library
uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available
previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of
Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original
texts of these important books while presenting them in durable
paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy
Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage
found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University
Press since its founding in 1905.
Describing the title of his collection of poetry and occasional
prose pieces, Gary Snyder writes in his introductory note that
Turtle Island is the old / new name for the continent, based on
many creation myths of the people who have been here for millennia,
and reapplied by some of them to 'North America' in recent years.
The nearly five dozen poems in the book range from the lucid,
lyrical, almost mystical to the mytho-biotic, while a few are
frankly political. All, however, share a common vision: a
rediscovery of this land and the ways by which we might become
natives of the place, ceasing to think and act (after all these
centuries) as newcomers and invaders. Of particular interest is the
full text of the ever more relevant Four Changes, Snyder's seminal
manifesto for environmental awareness.
As an especially beautiful and pure example of the archaic epic
styles that were once current among the hunting and fishing peoples
of northern Asia, the Ainu epic folklore is of immense literary
value. This collection and English translation by Donald Philippi
contains thirty-three representative selections from a number of
epic genres including mythic epics, culture hero epics, women's
epics, and heroic epics. This is the first time, outside of Japan,
that the Ainu epic folklore has been treated in a comprehensive
manner. Originally published in 1979. The Princeton Legacy Library
uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available
previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of
Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original
texts of these important books while presenting them in durable
paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy
Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage
found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University
Press since its founding in 1905.
By any measure, Gary Snyder is one of the greatest poets in America
in the last century. From his first book of poems to his latest
collection of essays, his work and his example, standing between Tu
Fu and Thoreau, have been influential all over the world. Riprap,
his first book of poems, was published in Japan in 1959 by Origin
Press, and it is the fiftieth anniversary of that groundbreaking
book we celebrate with this edition. A small press reprint of that
book included Snyder's translations of Han Shan's Cold Mountain
Poems, perhaps the finest translations of that remarkable poet ever
made into English. Reintroducing one of the twentieth century's
foremost collections of poetry, this edition will please those
already familiar with this work and excite a new generation of
readers with its profound simplicity and spare elegance.
"Wild nature as the ultimate ground of human affairs"--the
beautiful, precarious balance among forces and species forms a
unifying theme for the new poems in this collection. The title,
Regarding Wave, reflects "a half-buried series of word origins
dating back through the Indo-European language: intersections of
energy, woman, song and 'Gone Beyond Wisdom.'" Central to the work
is a cycle of songs for Snyder's wife, Masa, and their first son,
Kai. Probing even further than Snyder's previous collection of
poems, The Back Country, this new volume freshly explores "the most
archaic values on earth... 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..."
One of the central relationships in the Beat scene was the
long-lasting friendship of Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder. Ginsberg
introduced Snyder to the East Coast Beat writers, including Jack
Kerouac, while Snyder himself became the model for the serious poet
that Ginsberg so wanted to become. Snyder encouraged Ginsberg to
explore the beauty of the West Coast and, even more lastingly,
introduced Ginsberg to Buddhism, the subject of so many long letter
exchanges between them.
Beginning in 1956 and continuing through 1995, the two men
exchanged more than 850 letters. Bill Morgan, Ginsberg's biographer
and an important editor of his papers, has selected the most
significant correspondence from this long friendship. The letters
themselves paint the biographical and poetic portraits of two of
America's most important -- and most fascinating -- poets.
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