(VOA) For nearly 60 years, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet
Gary Snyder has combined an environmental awareness shaped by America's Far West with a
Zen Buddhist perspective that celebrates and reveres the natural world.
With his laughing eyes, deeply furrowed skin and unruly white beard, Snyder looks every bit the wizened sage as he reads an excerpt from his translation of a poem by
Han-Shan. This Chinese poet, whom Snyder affectionately calls a "mountain madman," lived more than 1,100 years ago in a cave, deep in the wilderness.
The path to Han-shan's place is laughable,
A path, but no sign of cart of horse,
Converging gorges -- hard to trace their twists
Jumbled cliffs -- unbelievably rugged.
A thousand grasses bend with dew,
a hill of pines hums in the wind.
And now I've lost the shortcut home
Body asking shadow, how do you keep up?
Off the Beaten Path
Like Han-Shan, Snyder says he has gained personal and spiritual insights from his experiences in nature. He is intimately familiar with the wild landscapes of Japan, where he lived and studied Zen Buddhism as a young man. And he knows the winding trails of California's Sierra Nevada mountain range, his home for many years. "A trail is really a handy thing," says Snyder.
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