No Nature (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "riprap: a cobble of stone laid on steep slick rock to make a trail for horses in the mountains..." (more)
Key Phrases: Cold Mountain, Turtle Island, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This first selected edition of Snyder's poetry offers an overview of a career spanning more than 30 years. Although he first came to prominence as a poet of the Beat Generation, Snyder's focus on nature and environmentalism has given his work a new urgency--and perhaps a greater staying power than that of his contemporaries. Turtle Island , his Pulitzer Prize-winning volume, seems to have marked the high tide of his career, when his themes (the environment, Buddhism, human arrogance) were those of the Vietnam era generally. But ultimately Snyder's most powerful poems are those that offer not so much a critique as a vision. Similarly, his study of Eastern languages and religion is most moving not when he claims that power "comes out of the seed-syllables of mantras," but when he integrates an Eastern sensibility into his own. Neither quaint nor sentimental in his outlook, Snyder approaches nature as one who has depended on it for his livelihood, not just sought it out for relaxation. And he insists, in his idea of "no nature," that the dichotomy between humanity and nature is a false one. Consistent rather than surprising, Snyder seeks through his art to "Taste all, and hand the knowledge down."
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

No nature is "a magnificent selection of the best of Snyder's career" (LJ 9/1/92), still going strong with the recent Mountains and Rivers Without End.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 390 pages
• Publisher: Pantheon; 1 edition (September 29, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679413855
• ISBN-13: 978-0679413851
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #971,993 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best of Gary Snyder, America's Zen Poet, February 2, 2002

By	Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

This review is from: No Nature: New and Selected Poems (Paperback)

I first heard of Gary Snyder when I stumbled across his answer to the question as to whether he would rather hear a poem by a raccoon or a possum. Snyder's answer was: "A raccoon's poem is alert and inquisitive, and amazes you by what a mess it makes. A possum's poem seems sort of slow and dumb at first, but then it rolls over. When you get close to it, it spits in your eye." I am not sure there is a clear cut answer there, but then Snyder, who received the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1975 for "Turtle Island," was first identified with the Beat movement before becoming an important spokesperson for communal living and ecological activism, so expecting him to choose between animal poems is probably a tad ambitious.

Snyder's poetry embodies the open-form experimentation of Walt Whitman, Allen Ginsberg and the Beats, as well as various "naked poetry" schools and movements from the 1960s to the present. He has also been strongly influenced at times by Japanese haikus and has listed among his influential/favorite poets Du Fu, Lorca, Basho, Pound, Yeats, Buson, Bai Ju-yi, Li He, Su Shih, Homer, Mira Bhai, and Kalidasa. Called by many a "Zen poet," Snyder's work is as likely to display a sense of humor as it is to deal with theological and aesthetic elements drawn from Zen and classical Japanese culture (e.g, "Axe Handles"). Snyder's earliest poems deal with the images and experiences he had working as a logger and ranger in the Pacific Northwest, which obviously instilled in him a love for not only nature but that which is ancient and mystical (e.g, "For All"). Of course, with a poet, it is always best to let the author speak in their own voice:

"How Poetry Comes to Me"

It comes blundering over the
Boulders at night, it stays
Frightened outside the
Range of my campfire
I go to meet it at the
Edge of the light

"No Nature: New and Selected Poems" contains parts of eight earlier published books by Snyder. This particular volume, published in 1992 and nominated for a National Book Award, contains an impressive selection of Snyder's best work across his long career.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Stripping poetry down to its bare bones., December 30, 2001

By	Theodore E. Kim (Indianapolis, IN USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: No Nature: New and Selected Poems (Paperback)

Gary Snyder is a master of condensation. Somehow, using an economy of words, he conveys a clear sense of "the moment" -- sitting on a mountain top; snuggling by the fire; walking on a crowded street. It's a new kind of minimalist poetry that, once read, makes some of the older stuff seem, well, old. Snyder's forte is poems about nature. One of my favorites, called "Mid-August at Sourdough Mountain Lookout" consists of just 10 lines. But I've read it a hundred times, and the words still ring true in my mind. He writes: "I cannot remember things I once read / A few friends, but they are in cities. / Drinking cold snow-water from a tin cup / Looking down for miles / Through high still air." "On Nature" is a collection of Snyder's best and most important works. I highly recommend it.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Indispensable, March 4, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: No Nature: New and Selected Poems (Paperback)

John Berryman said that the art of poetry was that of developing a personality in words. Gary Snyder is one of the most recognizable and fascinating poetic personalities of our time. Even when he is absent, he is present -- the details he chooses to focus on, the way of perceiving embodied by the poems, tell us as much about his mind ("a mind like compost," as he writes) as any work by the so-called "confessional" poets; but rather than concentrate on tawdry details and domestic crises, Snyder is more interested in the possibilities of mindfulness, the various ways of living well in the world, of carrying out "the real work". Constantly preoccupied, even obsessed, with questions of what to keep and what to throw out, where to withdraw and where to stand firm (see "Front Lines"), Snyder is engaged in the perpetual task of literature: to save what is worth saving, to make it fresh and pass it along. And his ability to find just the right rhythms and words for every situation, sensation or idea is remarkable. I admire him greatly and am grateful for his work.