We are proud to continue our project of publishing Deluxe Audio Editions
of the poems of Gary Snyder, read by him. When first published in 2004,
it was the poet's first new collection of poems in 20 years. Perhaps his
most personal, autobiographical collection, it begins with the young
poet ascending Mt. St. Helens in 1945, a climb accidentally timed with
the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He was 15 years old. Almost 60
years later, after the great Buddhas at Bamiyan Valley were bombed and
with the victims of the World Trade Center also "turned to dust," the
poet composed a prayer while at Short Grass Temple in Senso-ji, a
pilgrim on the path of Kannon, Goddess of Mercy.
This remarkable collection was greeted with broad praise, and as Julia
Martin proclaimed, "Moving between relative and absolute ways of seeing,
[Snyder] responds to the experience of global conflict and personal
pain by reminding readers of the continuity of wildness, affirming the
value of art, and invoking an ancient practice of wisdom and
compassion."