Gary Snyder

Gary Snyder (born May 8, 1930) is an American poet (often associated with the Beat Generation); and an essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist who is frequently described as the 'laureate of Deep Ecology — roles reflecting his studies of both Buddhist spirituality and nature. As a social critic, Snyder's views share something in common with Lewis Mumford, Aldous Huxley, Karl Hess, Aldo Leopold, and Karl Polanyi.

Is Gary Snyder "a Beat"?

Gary Snyder is widely regarded as a member of the Beat Generation circle of writers: he was one of the poets that read at the famous Six Gallery event mentioned above, and was

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written about in one of Kerouac's most popular novels, Dharma Bums. Some critics argue that Snyder's connection with the Beats is exaggerated and that he might better be regarded as a member of the West-Coast group the San Francisco Renaissance, which developed independently. Snyder himself has some reservations about the label "Beat," but does not appear to have any strong objection to being included in the group. He often talks about the Beats in the first person plural, refering to the group as "we" and "us".

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A quotation from a 1974 interview at the University of North Dakota Writers Conference (published in The Beat Vision):

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:"... I never did know exactly what was meant by the term "The Beats," but let's say that the original meeting, association, comradeship of Allen , myself, Michael , Lawrence , Philip Whalen, who's not here, Lew Welch, who's dead, Gregory , for me, to a somewhat lesser extent (I never knew Gregory as well as the others) did embody a criticism and a vision which we shared in various ways, and then went our own ways for many years. ...

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:"Where we began to come really close together again, in the late 60s, and gradually working toward this point, it seems to me, was when Allen began to take a deep interest in Oriental thought and then in Buddhism which added another dimension to our levels of agreement; and later through Allen's influence, Lawrence began to draw toward that; and from another angle, Michael and I after the lapse of some years of contact, found our heads very much in the same place, and it's very curious and interesting now; and Lawrence went off in a very political direction for awhile, which none of us had any objection with, except that wasn't my main focus. It's very interesting that we find ourselves so much on the same ground again, after having explored divergent paths; and find ourselves united on this position of powerful environmental concern, critique of the future of the individual state, and an essentially shared poetics, and only half-stated but in the background very powerfully there, a basic agreement on some Buddhist type psychological views of human nature and human possibilities."

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