Publication
Washington, D.C. : [Emeryville, Calif.] : Counterpoint ; Distributed by Publishers Group West, c1996.
Call number
Poetry / Snyde
ISBN
1887178201 / 9781887178204
Original publication date
1996
Collections
Physical description
viii, 165 p.; 21 cm
Awards
Reading the West Book Award (Winner — Poetry — 1997)
Description
Mountains and Rivers is an epic of geology, prehistory, and planetary mythologies. It is a poem about land and its processes, a book about wisdom, compassion, and myth, and a narrative work that is not quite like anything else.
Language
Similar in this library
User reviews
LibraryThing member conniekronlokken
Gary Snyder is one of my touchstone writers, not so much for the poetry as for the essays, which enlightened me as to how a modern person could hold on to his primordial essence. In this book, however, I took to heart Tara's vow, written by Snyder thus: "Those who wish to attain supreme
Show More
enlightenment in a man's body are many ... therefore may I, until this world is emptied out, serve the needs of beings with my body of a woman." Show Less
LibraryThing member kcshankd
This is a treasure, a folio-sized edition that allows for copies of the wonderful landscapes that helped launch the work. I spent several hours listening to Snyder read his poems, and was amazed to read in the notes that they were recorded over only two days! The man is obviously comfortable around
Show More
his own old friends, chanting over the well-trod wilderness on the page. Show Less
LibraryThing member deldevries
Interesting - but didn't capture my imagination.
LibraryThing member mykl-s
This long poem is all at once complex, simple, deep, worth reading slowly, worth dipping into any part of it in any sequence.
Mountains and Rivers Without End records some of Gary Snyder's journeys, from about 1956, until publication of the whole poem in book form in 1996.
It is about travels
The Bubbs Creek Haircut section begins and ends in a San Francisco barber shop, Snyder getting shorn "close as it will go" as he prepares for a hike to Bubbs Creek. His barber tells him the way, "Well I been up there, I built the cabin / up at Cedar Grove. In nineteen five." Snyder talks of this trek and other hitchhiking, walking, and camping experiences, mixing pasts and present in fascinating ways. His journey is folded inside the barber shop preparation for it, where all moments are the present moment and all things are one.
The Night Song of the Los Angeles Basin section is about an urban civilization that is surrounded by and suffused with nature. "The calligraphy of lights on the night / freeways of Los Angeles / will long be remembered. / Owl / calls; / late-rising moon." The owl and the moon get the last word.
By the nineties, the time when Snyder is telling this story, he has mellowed but he is still searching out "—the wildness, the / foolish loving spaces / full of heart."
Mountains and Rivers Without End records some of Gary Snyder's journeys, from about 1956, until publication of the whole poem in book form in 1996.
It is about travels
Show More
through geography, through time, and through his spiritual experiences within Zen Buddhism and other religious traditions. The poem is full of references to Snyder’s many lifelong interests, including back country hiking, poetry itself, environmentalism, the spirit, scholarship, and others. The Bubbs Creek Haircut section begins and ends in a San Francisco barber shop, Snyder getting shorn "close as it will go" as he prepares for a hike to Bubbs Creek. His barber tells him the way, "Well I been up there, I built the cabin / up at Cedar Grove. In nineteen five." Snyder talks of this trek and other hitchhiking, walking, and camping experiences, mixing pasts and present in fascinating ways. His journey is folded inside the barber shop preparation for it, where all moments are the present moment and all things are one.
The Night Song of the Los Angeles Basin section is about an urban civilization that is surrounded by and suffused with nature. "The calligraphy of lights on the night / freeways of Los Angeles / will long be remembered. / Owl / calls; / late-rising moon." The owl and the moon get the last word.
By the nineties, the time when Snyder is telling this story, he has mellowed but he is still searching out "—the wildness, the / foolish loving spaces / full of heart."
Show Less
LibraryThing member willszal
Apparently this isn't a common experience for everyone, but when I was in middle school, we studied the Beat Generation. I wouldn't be taking too much poetic license to claim that I was raised by Hippies, so to learn about the Beat Generation was like discovering a long-lost branch of my family. I
Gary Snyder is an animist, as am I. So when I learned of Snyder, I was immediately intrigued—an animist Beatnik.
Although I've been hearing about Snyder for a few years now, I haven't read much of his material. "Mountains and Rivers Without End" is Snyder's Magnum Opus, so I thought I might as well start there. Some had advised against this, but I would say—if you're willing to put in the time, you won't regret it!
The following is a book review of both "Mountains and Rivers Without End" and "A Sense of the Whole."
Gary Snyder spent forty years writing "Mountains and Rivers Without End"—from 1956 to 1996. For the '97-'98 academic year, Gonnerman hosted a seminar at Stanford on "Mountains and Rivers Without End." A broad community of intellectuals, artists, and spiritual leaders contributed to this corpus, which eventually lead to the publication of "A Sense of the Whole" in 2015 (I'm not entirely sure what led to the seventeen year delay). Snyder himself says that working with "Mountains and Rivers Without End" is a treacherous journey, and therefore recommends taking on the endeavor in community. This points to some of the ways in which Snyder's work harkens back to oral traditions. The copy I have includes an audio edition, and I appreciated being able to hear the work in Snyder's own voice (I wasn't able to track down a digital edition of the work).
If you're contemplating engaging with this work, I would encourage you to put together a reading plan. In my case, I read the poem from end to end first, then read the entirety of the companion volume, then listened to the audio edition of the poem. Throughout this time I was taking notes and having discussion with friends—both those familiar and unfamiliar with the text.
I read much less poetry than prose, so I will comment that whereas with prose, I generally read a book once, I can certainly see a work like this being something I come back to multiple or numerous times, as poems have a dynamic, ever-changing quality to them.
The poem is divided into four parts, following the structure of a Noh play.
My first reading of the piece wasn't particularly rapturous, although, as I was anticipating this, I stuck with it. Things really took off once I picked up the companion text. The corpus of the poem is a talisman. There might be a line that appears unremarkable, commonplace. But then once you place the line in context—the context of Chinese landscape art, Zen Buddhism, animism, geology, yogic mythology, or any of a numerous set of relationships—the line transports you to a web of relationship.
I also happen to be reading John McPhee's "From Annals of the Former World," a Pulitzer-winning book on the geology of the United States. I can certainly recommend this as one lens to deepen into Snyders work, although there are many others as well.
You might notice, I have yet to say really anything on the subject of what the poem is "about." Like any spiritual text, an meaning we derive from the material has as much to do with our own practice with the work as it does with some kind of objective set of takeaways. For this reason, I'll continue to marinade on the poetry, and hopefully this has given you enough reason to pick up the material for yourself.
Show More
still have a copy of "The Rolling Stones Book of the Beats." I wouldn't say that I am in love with the art produced by the Beat Generation, nor that I personally relate with it, but I do hold in high regard as an ancestral cultural well.Gary Snyder is an animist, as am I. So when I learned of Snyder, I was immediately intrigued—an animist Beatnik.
Although I've been hearing about Snyder for a few years now, I haven't read much of his material. "Mountains and Rivers Without End" is Snyder's Magnum Opus, so I thought I might as well start there. Some had advised against this, but I would say—if you're willing to put in the time, you won't regret it!
The following is a book review of both "Mountains and Rivers Without End" and "A Sense of the Whole."
Gary Snyder spent forty years writing "Mountains and Rivers Without End"—from 1956 to 1996. For the '97-'98 academic year, Gonnerman hosted a seminar at Stanford on "Mountains and Rivers Without End." A broad community of intellectuals, artists, and spiritual leaders contributed to this corpus, which eventually lead to the publication of "A Sense of the Whole" in 2015 (I'm not entirely sure what led to the seventeen year delay). Snyder himself says that working with "Mountains and Rivers Without End" is a treacherous journey, and therefore recommends taking on the endeavor in community. This points to some of the ways in which Snyder's work harkens back to oral traditions. The copy I have includes an audio edition, and I appreciated being able to hear the work in Snyder's own voice (I wasn't able to track down a digital edition of the work).
If you're contemplating engaging with this work, I would encourage you to put together a reading plan. In my case, I read the poem from end to end first, then read the entirety of the companion volume, then listened to the audio edition of the poem. Throughout this time I was taking notes and having discussion with friends—both those familiar and unfamiliar with the text.
I read much less poetry than prose, so I will comment that whereas with prose, I generally read a book once, I can certainly see a work like this being something I come back to multiple or numerous times, as poems have a dynamic, ever-changing quality to them.
The poem is divided into four parts, following the structure of a Noh play.
My first reading of the piece wasn't particularly rapturous, although, as I was anticipating this, I stuck with it. Things really took off once I picked up the companion text. The corpus of the poem is a talisman. There might be a line that appears unremarkable, commonplace. But then once you place the line in context—the context of Chinese landscape art, Zen Buddhism, animism, geology, yogic mythology, or any of a numerous set of relationships—the line transports you to a web of relationship.
I also happen to be reading John McPhee's "From Annals of the Former World," a Pulitzer-winning book on the geology of the United States. I can certainly recommend this as one lens to deepen into Snyders work, although there are many others as well.
You might notice, I have yet to say really anything on the subject of what the poem is "about." Like any spiritual text, an meaning we derive from the material has as much to do with our own practice with the work as it does with some kind of objective set of takeaways. For this reason, I'll continue to marinade on the poetry, and hopefully this has given you enough reason to pick up the material for yourself.
Show Less