A poetry of being: A reading of Gary Snyder's poetry

Gary Snyder's poetry covers a variety of experiences and convictions. He places an extreme amount of belief in the natural world to the extent that he regards nature as the ultimate storehouse for truth and meaning. He also devotes a large amount of his work to the importance of symbols and symbolic interaction throughout human experience. Nature and symbols constitute the means available to humans for attaining and expressing knowledge. Snyder uses these two aspects of knowledge to create his poetry. He believes that people can learn to appreciate their own lives in relation to nature if they can discover and realize the full potential of these forms of knowledge. A careful reading of Snyder's work is one way to reach an understanding of his vision.