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.

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 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).

"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."

In simple, striking verse, legendary poet Gary Snyder weaves an epic discourse on the topics of geology, prehistory, and mythology. First published in 1996, this landmark work encompasses Asian artistic traditions, as well as Native American storytelling and Zen Buddhist philosophy, and celebrates the disparate elements of the Earth -- sky, rock, water -- while exploring the human connection to nature with stunning wisdom. Winner of the Bollingen Poetry Prize, the Robert Kirsch Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Orion Society's John Hay Award, among others, Gary Snyder finds his quiet brilliance celebrated in this new edition of one of his most treasured works.

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.

**A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2012**
Lew Welch was a brilliant and troubled poet, legendary among his Beat peers. Ring of Bone collects poems, songs, and even a few drawings, documenting the full sweep of his creative output, from his early years until just before his death. This new edition includes a biographic timeline and a statement of poetics gleaned from Welch's own writing.
Welch entered Reed College in 1948, and the following year moved into a house with Gary Snyder; they were soon joined by Philip Whalen. With the emergence of the Beat movement, Welch's friends began receiving national attention and his desire to devote himself completely to his poetry was galvanized. He soon became a part of the San Francisco poetry scene.
Legendary editor Donald Allen included Welch's poetry in The New American Poetry - the seminal anthology published in 1960. That same year Welch's first book, Wobbly Rock, was released. He continued to write extensively, and in 1965 published three books. Despite his burgeoning success, Welch suffered from bouts with depression, and on May 23, 1971, Gary Snyder went up to Welch's campsite in the Sierra Nevada mountains and found a suicide note. Despite an extensive search, Welch's body was never recovered.
"Lew Welch writes lyrical poems of clarity, humor, and dark probings . . . jazz musical phrasings of American speech is one of Welch's clearest contributions." --Gary Snyder
..".Music permeates his poems, which range from scored lyrics to epistolary correspondence to formal villanelles... It's fascinating to trace the evolution of this artist, from his early, lax, exultant style to his later, less jubilant work, characterized by benedictions, invocations, and requests. This is a necessary read for anyone interested in the greater Beat movement and its progenitors."--Booklist
""His luminous poems feel as vibrant today as when they first burst from the wellsprings of creativity in his own head... A postmodern Walt Whitman. . ."--San Francisco Chronicle
"In the poet's own words, " Ring of Bone]" is a spiritual autobiography . . . no better description of him exists than that which came in his own vision, deep in the wilds of the Klamath Mountains, the poem after which the collection is titled. . . . These 40 years later, Lew, you are missed."--"The Rumpus"
""Ring of Bone: Collected Poems" is Welch's major work. Exuberant, funny, dark, hypnotic, Welch's poems are as infused with nature as Gary] Snyder's and as spiritually alive as Philip] Whalen's. They're technically brilliant, grounded in form and wildly experimental. . . ."--"The Oregonion"

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.

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.

"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..."

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.

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.

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."

In this classic collection of 29 pieces that span half a century, Gary Snyder explores humans' complex, ever-evolving attitudes toward the environment. He argues that nature is not separate from humanity, but intrinsic to it, and that since societies are natural constructs, it's imperative to go beyond racial, ethnic, and religious identities to find a shared concern for acts that benefit humans and nonhumans alike. Included in the collection is his 1971 environmental manifesto "Four Changes," which, as he writes in a postscript, is unfortunately truer than ever. In this new edition, Snyder sends out a call-to-action that challenges all beings to take moral responsibility, a call that resounds with readers discovering the book for the first time or those returning to an old favorite.