Wild nature as the ultimate ground of human affairs--the beautiful,
precarious balance among forces and species forms a unifying theme for
the new poems in this collection. The title, Regarding Wave, reflects a
half-buried series of word origins dating back through the Indo-European
language: intersections of energy, woman, song and 'Gone Beyond Wisdom.'
Central to the work is a cycle of songs for Snyder's wife, Masa, and
their first son, Kai. Probing even further than Snyder's previous
collection of poems, The Back Country, this new volume freshly explores
the most archaic values on earth... the fertility of the soil, the magic
of animals, the power-vision in solitude, the terrifying initiation and
rebirth, the love and ecstasy of the dance, the common work of the
tribe..."