(Image by Flickr user northcascadesnationalpark, used under Creative Commons license.)
Gary Snyder has written a lot of rewarding poetry over the years. But for me no single poem has been as coherent and satisfying as the first piece in his first collection:
Mid-August at Sourdough Mountain Lookout
Down valley a smoke haze
Three days heat, after five days rain
Pitch glows on the fir-cones
Across rocks and meadows
Swarms of new flies.I cannot remember things I once read
A few friends, but they are in cities.
Drinking cold snow-water from a tin cup
Looking down for miles
Through high still air.
8 comments
January 25, 2010 at 9:27 pm
Punning Pundit
That’s a rather evocative poem about what I’ve structured my life to avoid…
January 25, 2010 at 10:42 pm
jimmy
Sorry, OT:
I’m wondering which one of you here is going to have a field day w/ David Brooks’ column today. It is, yes, another column in which his “knowledge” of history is on display.
January 26, 2010 at 10:16 am
Erik Lund
Summer work in the woods, no recall? Good so far. Composing poetry? Another point.
Oops. Good poetry? Fail.
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January 26, 2010 at 10:17 am
Vance
jimmy, being more a critic than a historian, I was struck by the goofy form of the thing — literally an expansion of the old joke that there are two kinds of people, those who divide the world into two kinds of people and the rest.
And Punning, the poem is evocative, but it’s also highly formal. The habitual comparison to haiku is quite appropriate: the syllable counts are 6-8-6-6-4 / 10-9-10-5-4, or -6-4 if you count “miles” as two syllables. The focus is on the visible world around him, except in the three longer lines, where he considers himself and his friends. And all the sounds are rigorously placed. “I cannot remember things I once read” is not to be taken literally.
January 26, 2010 at 10:18 am
Vance
Erik, what? I don’t get the fail.
January 26, 2010 at 10:40 am
Punning Pundit
@Vance: Let me rephrase, I really detest being outdoors and miles away from civilization. For one moment, however,– while reading the poem– I sort of liked the idea of it.
January 26, 2010 at 11:05 am
Erik Lund
Summer work in the woods has its own culture. One involving being stoned from May ’till September.
January 26, 2010 at 11:07 am
Vance
Those guys must have been “down valley”….