Poet: Gary Snyder
Publisher: Fulcrum Press, London
Year: 1967, second edition
Size: 242 x 160 x 20 mm
Pages: 164, Hardcover with dust jacket
Language: English
Artwork: Gary Snyder & Will Petersen
Photography: Ken Walden
Design: Stuart Montgomery
Condition: Very good, slight discolouration of the page edges. Minor damage to the dust jacket.
Postage & packing not included
American poet, translator and environmentalist Gary Snyder was born in San Francisco in 1930. After his parents had moved to Washington State and later to Oregon, Snyder discovered reading, poetry and the folklore of the Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest. He published his first poems during his time at Reed College, Portland and graduated with a dual degree in anthropology and literature in 1951. His experiences working summers as a hand in the timber industry were expressed in his poetry of the early 1950s. Having returned to his native San Francisco in 1952, Snyder studied Asian cultures and languages and began practising Zen. He read one of his poems at the famous 1955 poetry readings at the Six Gallery in San Francisco, which heralded the birth of the Beat Generation. But although there are all sorts of connections with the Beats, Snyder was never really part of that circle and rather thought of himself as belonging to the San Francisco Renaissance, which was spearheaded by Kenneth Rexroth. Snyder started studying Zen Buddhism in Kyoto, Japan in 1955, returned to California in 1958 and divided the next decade between Japan and California, writing poetry, translating and furthering his Zen studies. In 1970 he settled in Kitkitdizze, his property in the Sierra Nevada foothills of Northern California. In the 1980s Snyder was appointed a professor at the University of California and became deeper involved in environmental issues. He has been awarded several prizes for his poetry and is held in high esteem as a Zen Buddhist and environmental activist.
A Range of Poems compiles several of Snyder’s earlier works from Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems, Myths & Texts, translations of poems by Kenji Miyazawa and The Back Country. It was published in 1966 by Fulcrum Press, London, followed by a second edition one year later. This particular copy of the second edition from 1967 is in very good condition with only slight discolouration of the edges of the pages and minor damage to the dust jacket, which has a 42/- price sticker on its front flap.