Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems

by Gary Snyder

Forty-five years ago, Gary Snyder’s first book of poems, Riprap, was published by Origin Press in a beautiful paperbound edition stitched Japanese-style. Around that time Snyder published his translations of Chinese poet Han-Shan’s Cold Mountain Poems in the sixth issue of the “Evergreen Review.” Thus was launched one of the most remarkable literary careers of the last century. It is a great gift for all readers to now have this seminal collection back in print.

Genres: Poetry, Nature, China, Classics, American, The United States Of America, Fiction

80 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

Gary Snyder is an American poet, essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist. His early poetry has been associated with the Beat Generation and the San Francisco Renaissance and he has been described as the "poet laureate of Deep Ecology". Snyder is a winner of a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the American Book Award. His work, in his various roles, reflects an immersion in both Buddhist spirituality and nature. He has translated literature into English from ancient Chinese and modern Japanese. For many years, Snyder was an academic at the University of California, Davis, and for a time served as a member of the California Arts Council.

Reviews

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems is a difficult book to evaluate. The best poems in it were inspiring and transformative when they first appeared in the late ‘50s, and they continue to be unique and inspiring now. They comprise, however, only about a third of this collection. The remainder—of the less than sixty pages here—do not sing, or do not sing much. They are either awkward and derivative, or cautious and academic.

Let's deal with the inferior stuff first. The only awkward poems (“Praise for Sick Women, “For a Far Out Friend,” “A Stone Garden”) are about women—a subject the young Snyder (although he was known as a "ladies man") does not seem to know much about. These poems are propped up by secondhand myth and rhetoric, the sort of thing Snyder elsewhere avoids. The derivative poems (“Migration of Birds,” “T-2 Tanker Blues.” “Cartagena”) show the influence of Ginsberg and Kerouac’s anecdotal and effusive style, and seem out of character coming from the deliberative, meditative Snyder. The cautious and academic part I’m referring to is the entire text of Cold Mountain Poems, a selection of 24 poems by Han-shan, translated from the Chinese. These are not bad poems; in fact, some of the best individual lines reflect Snyder’s genius, particularly his anarchic spirit and his humor. I am convinced the poet learned much from completing this exercise, but something—either the moral burden of crafting a faithful translation or the practical constraints of his Berkeley seminar—prevented Snyder from producing the great work of translation he was capable of.

Which leaves us with the beauty part, the eighteen pages of poetry in Raprap that—I believe—will live in the American spirit for a long time.

In 1955, after a year of graduate work in Oriental languages, the 25-year-old Gary Snyder took a summer job as a trail crew laborer in Yosemite National Park:

They soon had me working in the upper reaches of the Piute Creek drainage, a land of smooth white granite … the visible memory of the ice age. The bedrock is so brilliant that it shines back at the crystal night stars. In a curious mind of renunciation and long day’s hard work with shovel, pick, dynamite, and boulder, my language relaxed into itself … and I found myself writing some poems that surprised me.

Snyder was building trails though the granite with “riprap,” that is, “a cobble of stone laid on steep, slick rock to make a trail for horses in the mountains.” He began to see that these trails and his verses were both like the Chinese poems he loved, “with their monosyllabic step-by-step placement, their crispness.”

The poems he wrote, filled with the natural beauties of Northern California, the spirit of zen, and honest work, are perfect in themselves, and were perfect for the times. Snyder became friends with Ginsberg and Kerouac, two city kids who found this mountain-climbing country boy poet to be both mythic and romantic. Ginsberg invited him to be part of the San Francisco reading where he debuted his classic poem “Howl,” and Kerouac used him as a model for Japhy Ryder in The Dharma Bums.

Snyder soon became a Beat legend, but the poems themselves still possess a purity that shines, apart from all that. Here are three of them—one about trail clearing, one about hay bale stacking, one about ship deck painting—all about work:

ABOVE PATE VALLEY

We finished clearing the last
Section of trial by noon,
High on the ridge-side
Two thousand feet above the creek
Reached the pass, went on
Beyond the white pine groves,
Granite shoulders, to a small
Green meadow water by the snow,
Edged with Aspen—sun
Straight high and blazing
But the air was cool.
Ate a cold fried trout in the
Trembling shadows. I spied
A glitter, and found a flake
Black volcanic glass—obsidian—
By a flower. Hands and knees
Pushing the Bear grass, thousands
Of arrowhead leavings over a
Hundred yards. Not one good
Head, just razor flakes
On a hill snowed all but summer,
A land of fat summer deer,
They came to camp. On their
Own trails. I followed my own
Trail here. Picked up the cold-drill,
Pick, singlejack, and sack
Of dynamite.
Ten thousand years.



HAY FOR THE HORSES

He had driven half the night
From far down San Joaquin
Through Mariposa, up the
Dangerous mountain roads,
And pulled in at eight a.m.
With his big truckload of hay
behind the barn.
With winch and ropes and hooks
We stacked the bales up clean
To splintery redwood rafters
High in the dark, flecks of alfalfa
Whirling through shingle-cracks of light,
Itch of hay dust in the
sweaty shirt and shoes.
At lunchtime under Black oak
Out in the hot corral,
--The old mare nosing lunchpails,
Grasshoppers crackling in the weeds—
“I’m sixty-eight” he said,
“I first bucked hay when I was seventeen.
I though, that day I started,
I sure would hate to do this all my life.
And dammit, that’s just what
I’ve gone and done.”


GOOFING AGAIN

Goofing again
I shifted weight the wrong way
flipping the plank end-over
dumping me down in the bilge
& splatting a gallon can
of thick sticky dark red
italian deck paint
over the fresh white bulkhead.
such a trifling move
& such spectacular results.
now I have to paint the wall again
& salvage only from it all a poem.

[Jessaka · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have owned this book for awhile, and just picked it up again because I have been reading poems by Cold Mountain (Han-Shan) and wanted to see other translations. Gary Snyder has translated only 24 of them, but that was enough for Han-Shan to become popularized in the U.S.

Gary Snyder enrolled at U.C. Berkeley back in 1953, and one of his professors, Chen Shih-hsiang, encouraged them to translate them because he felt that Snyder may have an affinity with them. And that he did.

I read the Riprap poems in his book, but I didn't care for them. I have always found beat poetry to be too obscure. But since finding that he has written a Pulitzer Prize winning book, "Turtle Island," I must read it and see how I feel afterwards.

Here is his translation of one of Cold Mountain's poems by Gary Snyder :

Men ask the way to Cold Mountain
Cold Mountain: there's no through trail.
In summer, ice doesn't melt
The rising sun blurs in swirling fog.
How did I make it?
My heart's not the same as yours.
If your heart was like mine
You'd get it and be right here.

Now here is Red Pine's rendition:

People ask the way to Cold Mountain
but roads don't reach Cold Mountain
In Summer the ice doesn't melt
and the morning fog is too dense
how did someone like me arrive
our minds are not the same
if they were you would be here.

And here is Wandering Poet's translation:

People ask the way to Cold Mountain
Roads do not go through
Summer arrives yet
the ice has not melted
Though the sun is out it's
foggy and dim
How did I arrive here?
My mind and yours are
not the same
When our minds are one
You will be here too.

Seaton's:

People ask about the Cold
Mountain way:
plain roads don't get through to
Cold Mountain.
Middle of the summer, and the ice
still hasn't melted.
Sunrise and the mist would blind a
hidden dragon.
So, how could a man like me get
here?
My heart is not the same as yours,
dear sir...
If your heart were like mine,
you'd be here already.


and last of all, here is Bruce Watson's translation of the same poem, my favorite:


People ask the way to Cold Mountain
Cold Mountain? There is no road that goes through.
Even in summer the ice doesn't melt;
Though the sun comes out, the fog is blinding.
How can you hope to get there by aping me?
Your heart and mine are not alike.
If your heart were the same as mind,
Then you could journey to the very center!

Here is what I call the "bare bones" of this poem, a direct translation of the Chinese:

I love mountain
Not people know
White cloud middle
Always peace

As for other poems in this book that were not Cold Mountain's, well, they are beat, they are hard to understand, but sometimes they actually do make sense. Here's one that does and doesn't, but in reading it again, it actually does make sense:

In a quiet dusty corner
on the north porch
Some farmers eating lunch on the steps.
Up high behind a beam: a small
carved wood panel
Of leaves, twisting tree trunk,
Ivy, and a sleek fine-haired Doe
a six-point Buck in front
Head crooked back, watching her.
The great tile roof sweeps up
& floats a grey shale
Mountain over the town.
Note: Dates different books were written:
gary snyder, 1958
burton watson 1962
red pine 1983
wandering poet, 2007
seaton 2011

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The riprap poems are the best - at least the start of the collection where most of the poems deal with his time in California and Washington. Working in the logging communities or climbing mountains when the workers were laid off or on strike. These are all well rendered and vivid.

The cold mountain poems are largely about Japan and Buddhism and are harder to relate to.

4 stars

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much less meaningful than Turtle Island. The "Riprap" half of the book, written when the young poet worked as a logger and did trail maintenance at Yosemite National Park, was good, as advertised.

The "Cold Mountain Poems" second half, consisting of translations of centuries-old Chinese Zen poems, left me unmoved.

[Gordon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I believe that within the true intentions of Gary Snyder, there exists an overall appreciation for the concrete as opposed to the abstract. In RipRap, the first portion of the book, Snyder relies heavily on descriptions and imagery that are very easy to imagine and interpret. For most of the poems in the first half of the book RipRap, the titles of the poems themselves adequately encompass the true meaning or vision that Snyder is trying to portray in each poem. Snyder brilliantly describes the scenes within each poem with vivid details that submerge the reader into the places and situations he has visited himself. His use of diction, syntax, and word choice emphasis the specifications of his own memory, and the ability to translate his images on to the page. Because the majority of poems in the book are rallied from his memory, Snyder often places himself in each of his poems using the fist person point of view. While this establishes a sense of credibility towards the descriptions in his poems, this also creates distance from the reader to imagine him or herself in each poem. On the other hand, the settings he describes are met with such distinction from poem to poem, that the majority of scenarios are very unfamiliar to me and seem better fit for Snyder than if I placed myself in them. The reoccurring themes I found throughout RipRap are: nature, woman's beauty, friends, locations( places), the real( concrete), horses, animals ( other than horses), seasons, temperature, and light( sunshine).

The second half of the book named Cold Mountain separates itself from RipRap in the distinction of a preface, where RipRap only contains a definition of itself. The preface, I believe, serves as the foundation for the proceeding poems and gives their meanings more depth. The poems there after help to further describe the preface, which tells of Han-Shan, a man of Tao who was not completely understand by the locals and Snyder himself. Cold Mountain is a Eulogy for Han-Shan, and each poem is shorter than the poems found in the first half of the book, RipRap. This may be symbolic of Han's life. The poems are more metaphorical and express Han-Shan more so than Snyder himself. Where Snyder was the main focus of RipRap, Han-Shan is the main focus of Cold Mountain. Because Han-Shan was seen by the local villages from where he was from as crazy and confusing, I believe Snyder tried to focus on ideas for his poems that are not quite understood and leave the reader questioning the true meaning. That also may be a reason for the shortness of the poems as well.

Personally, I feel more of a connection to Cold Mountain than RipRap because I enjoy reading poems that focus more on the abstract than the concrete. I also enjoyed the preface to Cold Mountain more than just the definition of RipRap. Snyder’s use of Chinese literature really does show itself throughout the poems in his book, which help to brilliantly describe his work as a poet.

[Nancy Bevilaqua · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a poet, I'm not very comfortable reviewing the work of other poets, let alone someone of Gary Snyder's stature. I can only say what appeals to me, what moves me, what inspires me to go off to write some more, and, sometimes, what doesn't work for me (which is very often the very thing that will make someone else fall in love with the poet).

I was so dumb and arrogant in college (Reed-which is something that Mr. Snyder and I do have in common). I read a little of Snyder's work and, in my great poetic wisdom, found it too simple, too wholesome, too straightforward for my taste. I was (and, to some extent, still am) a fan of "edgy" work that played with language and dealt with Great Themes like sex, drugs, suicide, and fucked-up relationships (see my own collection A Rough Deliverance, which includes many of my poems from that time). I loved Berryman and Garcia Lorca and Plath. I actually satirized Snyder's work with lines like, "My woman's breasts/hang over the sink." As if I had a clue.

Thirty-something years later I came back to Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems with a very different frame of reference. For one (extremely important) thing, I know much more now about Buddhism and the Tao, which is not saying a hell of a lot because I knew next-to-nothing about such things when I was in college (although I'll bet I thought I did). I'll cut to the chase here and say that I was astonished this time around by the grace and skill of Snyder's poems, and by his clear, serene vision of the natural world as a mirror for the spirit. I only left out the final star because sometimes I felt that he was going a little far in trying to bring home the Buddhist or Taoist "point" (wrong word, no doubt) of a poem. Again, purely a matter of taste.

I do want to say that I was glad that he did not choose to delete or revise the poem "For a Far-Out Friend" for the 50th Anniversary edition, in spite of some criticism he apparently received for the beginning, "Because I once beat you up/drunk..." Instead, he added an explanatory note (in which he claims that the real situation was quite different). God knows that I in no way condone violence against women (or against children, men, or any sentient creature), but I don't believe that deleting objectionable things from art is a useful means of dealing with the problem (unless, perhaps, they're clearly meant to incite violence or harm). These things exist; we need to see them.

But ask me again in another thirty-something years.

[A.M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this collection by Gary Snyder, likely because of its Zen Buddhist elements. The book is actually two separate collections, one entitled "RIPRAP" and the other entitled "COLD MOUNTAIN POEMS."

RIPRAP can almost be seen as a prelude to COLD MOUNTAIN, the poems expressing the poet's search for meaning as he goes about the act of survival -- working, looking for work, traveling, observing nature and humanity on a day-to-day, season-to-season basis and observing the underlying sense of futility. As he asks in "Milton by Firelight":

What use, Milton, a silly story
Of our lost general parents,
eaters of fruit? ...

... In ten thousand years the Sierras
Will be dry and dead, home of the scorpion.
Ice-scratched slabs and bent trees.
No paradise, no fall,
Only the weathering land
The wheeling sky,
Man, with his Satan
Scouring the chaos of the mind.
Oh Hell! ...

Other strong poems are "The Late Snow & Lumber Strike of the Summer of Fifty-four," "Piute Creek," "Thin Ice," "Stone Garden" and "Riprap." He has two poems of a tormented mind while traveling asea - "T-2 Tanker Blues" and "Cartagena" - right at the end of this section, and "Riprap" actually ends the collection. As Snyder describes in a footnote to this section, Riprap is "a cobble of stone laid on steep slick rock to make a trail for horses in the mountains." I see riprap as a metaphor for events and experiences leading the poet to "Cold Mountain," which is an enlightened state of mind.

The COLD MOUNTAIN POEMS are an interpretation of the journey to Cold Mountain, or path to enlightenment. Snyder provides the reader with the story of Han-shan, who lived on "Cold Mountain" - the actual preface to his 300 poems. There are 24 "Cold Mountain" poems, and I enjoyed every one of them. One of my favorites is #16:

16

Cold Mountain is a house
Without beams or walls.
The six doors left and right are open
The hall is blue sky.
The rooms all vacant and vague
The east wall beats on the west wall
At the center nothing.

Borrowers don't bother me
In the cold I build a little fire
When I'm hungry I boil up some greens.
I've got no use for the kulak
With his big barn and pasture --
He just sets up a prison for himself.
Once in he can't get out.
Think it over --
You know it might happen to you.


The book ends with the line
All I can say to those I meet:
"Try and make it to Cold Mountain."

I'm trying.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Japhy Freaking Ryder man his first book of poems. I don't why I'm giving it FOUR stars, maybe because it's not my favorite book of his poetry...but it's also great, much of his lore working in the North East, then the Cold Mountain Poems several times left me in that high haiku space. You like the Beats, check it out. You like logging, check it out. You like Eastern philosophy, check it out. You like Yab Yum, check it out!

[Nils Albin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gary Snyder's first poetry collection is a wonderful and meditative reflection on his travels as a deckhand, his labour in the North American backcountry as well of his studies of Zen in Japan. Snyder was the first that managed to transfer and popularize to a Western audience the elegance, simplicity and depth that has defined Chinese poetics through many thousands of years. Included in the book is also his insightful rendering of the Chinese hermit monk, Hanshan. Through the work of Snyder did Hanshan manage to inspire a generation of people seeking a different kind of life than the one pushed by the State, the Church and the Capital. While many may not have read Riprap, they might've nonetheless encountered Snyder and Hanshan through Snyders friend Jack Kerouac and his book "The Dharma Bums".

This book reinforces my belief that Snyder is one of the finest American poets. Snyder continues to inspire me every day to see through the illusions of our complicated world, yet to also see the beauty of it.

"A clear, attentive mind
Has no meaning but that
Which sees is truly seen."

[William Burruss · Rating 5 out of 5]

RipRap and the Cold Mountain poems are some of Gary Snyder's best known poems. For years I have read them, but because of Audible I was able to get an edition that Gary Snyder reads. To hear and rehear great poems allows you to be one with the writer. I highly suggest that you consider this new method.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Riprap: tough, sturdy, sparse poetry like his East Asian influences. I liked his translation of Cold Mountain better. Makes me long for that faraway place, to be the old man of the mountain.

[Nicholas Trandahl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply put, "Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems" is one of the finest books of poetry I've ever read. I'd rank this up alongside Raymond Carver's "All of Us" and Jim Harrison's "Dead Man's Float". Brutally honest, simple, sparse prose comprise this thin collection, Snyder's first, and the book is finished off by Snyder's translations of the remarkable simple work of Han-Shan, a 7th century Chinese poet that would've been write at home in the 20th century backcountry of America.
This book has finished the long steady rise of Gary Snyder as one of my all-time favorite poets. Certainly one of the greats.

[Michael P. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was with Snyder for many of the Riprap poems, but then the part of the book that I most looked forward to reading, the poems influenced by some pretty brilliant Chinese poetry, arrived. It isn't only that the Zen preaching put me off, though it really did, but these poems are to Chinese poetry what Eric Clapton is to the American Blues. It is lovely that Snyder and Clapton admire these wonderful works, but their own versions are mealy pap.

[Leah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm rounding up for promise - if I could I'd give this 3 1/2 stars, I think. It's his first book and you can definitely see potential, but it's a little uneven. Some of the poems are lovely, while others are just ok. However, it does make me want to read more of his work and that says something.

[Blake · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read Dharma Bums a dozen times and finally FINALLY got around to this and it certainly exceeded all expectations which were quite high to begin with. So good.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

I especially enjoyed the Cold Mountain poem translations.

[Kelty Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

And now I've lost the shortcut home,
Body asking shadow, how do you keep up?

Han-shan

I could read these two lines for an indefinite amount of time.

[Luís Branco · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite good!

[Amy · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was recommended to me by one of my local librarians but was just a total miss.

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Down valley a smoke haze
Three days heat, after five days rain
Pitch glows on the fir-cones
Across rocks and meadows
Swarms of new flies.

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.

- Mid-August at Sourdough Mountain Lookout, pg. 3

* * *

Walking in February
A warm day after a long freeze
On an old logging road
Below Sumas Mountain
Cut a walking stick of alder,
Looked down through clouds
On wet fields on the Nooksack -
And stepped on the ice
Of a frozen pool across the road.
It creaked.
The white air under
Sprang away, long cracks
Shot out in the black,
My cleated mountain boots
Slipped on the hard slick
- like thin ice - then sudden
Feel of an old phrase made real -
Instand of frozen leaf,
Icewater, and staff in hand.
"Like walking on thing ice - "
I yelled back to a friend,
It broke and I dropped
Eight inches in

- Thin Ice, pg. 16

* * *

A few light flakes of snow
Fall in the feeble sun;
Birds sing in the cold,
A warbler by the wall. The plum
Buds tight and chill soon bloom.
The moon begins first
Fourth, a faint slice west
At nightfall. Jupiter half-way
High at the end of night-
Meditation. The dove cry
Twangs like a bow.
At dwan Mt. Hiei dusted white
On top; in the clear air
Folds of all the gullied green
Hills around the town are sharp,
Breath stings. Beneath the roofs
Of frosty houses
Lovers part, from tangle warm
Of gentle bodies under quilt
And crack the icy water of the face
And wake and feed the children
And grandchildren that they love.

- Kyoto: March, pg. 22

* * *

Lay down these words
Before your mind like rocks.
 placed solid, by hands
In choice of place, set
Before the body of the mind
 in space and time:
Solidity of bark, leaf, or wall
 riprap of things:
Cobble of milky way,
 straying planets,
These poems, people,
 lost ponies with
Dragging saddles
 and rocky sure-foot trails.
The worlds like an endless
 four-dimensional
Game of Go.
 ants and pebbles
In the thin loam, each rock a word
 a creek-washed stone
Granite: ingrained
 with torment of fire and weight
Crystal and sediment linked hot
 all change, in thoughts,
As well as things.
- Riprap, pg. 32

* * *

The path to Han-shan's place is laughable,
A path, bu no sign of cart or horse.
Converging gorges - hard to trace their twists
Jumbled cliffs - unbelievably rugged.
A thousand grasses bend with dew,
A hill of pines hums in the wind.
And now I've lost the shortcut home,
Body asking shadow, how do you keep up?

- Cold Mountain Poems, 1, pg. 39

* * *

I can't stand these bird-songs
Now I'll go rest in my straw shack.
The cherry flowers out scarlet
The willow shoots up feathery.
Morning sun drives over blue peaks
Bright clouds wash green ponds.
Who knows that I'm out of the dusty world
Climbing the southern slope of Cold Mountain?

- Cold Mountain Poems, 13, pg. 51

* * *

Some critic tried to put me down -
"Your poems lack the Basic Truth of Tao"
And I recall the old-timers
Who were poor and didn't care.
I have to laugh at him,
He misses the point entirely,
Men like that
Ought to stick to making money.

- Cold Mountain Poems, 20, pg. 58

* * *

When men see Han-shan
They all say he's crazy
And not much to look at
Dressed in rags and hides.
They don't get what I say
& I don't talk their language.
All I can say to those I meet:
"Try and make it to Cold Mountain."

- Cold Mountain Poems, 24, pg. 62

[Charles Source · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm pretty fond of this collection sparse, evocative, elegant verse (Riprap). It's the first book ever published by the now-famous author Gary Snyder, and the poems seem to have a very unselfconscious feel, as though they were being written just for the hell of it and not necessarily by a "poet". In general I like the minimalistic, contemplative style of the poems, many of which take place in the natural landscapes of the American West, as well as in Japan and on a tanker ship. I also thoroughly enjoyed the second part of the book (Cold Mountain Poems) – a selection of ancient Chinese verse by an enigmatic figure named "Cold Mountain" (aka Hanshan), which Snyder translated way back in the day. They're quite spare and mysterious, leaving one reflecting on the solitary life of the hermit and spiritual truths, while it's clear that the poems may have served as an inspiration for Snyder's work itself. Great little book for anyone looking to get into his stuff!

[Johns · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'll say flat out that Mr. Snyder's philosophy differs from that in which I was reared and still patently operate. I have lived in Japan where I enjoyed learning about the fascinating culture there although I did not imbibe its prevailing philosophy as deeply as did this author.

Thrice, I carefully read Snyder's preface to the Cold Mountain Poems (page 35) which in turn fill the final fifty percent of this little volume. And I'm still confused as to exactly who wrote all the Cold Mountain Poems in this book.

For me, the best line in this slim volume was from the author's Afterword on page 65: "The bedrock is so brilliant that it shines back at the crystal night stars." This evocative line is sublime poetry! (The paragraph describes the author's part-time work as trail crew laborer at Yosemite National Park. I can relate since at one time, I volunteered to repair trail wear damage done by summer hikers high on Mount Rainier in the National Park located near Ashford, Washington.)

[Joana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Piute Creek

One granite ridge
A tree, would be enough
Or even a rock, a small creek,
A bark shred in a pool.
Hill beyond hill, folded and twisted
Tough trees crammed
In thin stone fractures
A huge moon on it all, is too much.
The mind wanders. A million
Summers, night air still and the rocks
Warm. Sky over endless mountains.
All the junk that goes with being human
Drops away, hard rock wavers
Even the heavy present seems to fail
This bubble of a heart.
Words and books
Like a small creek off a high ledge
Gone in the dry air.

A clear, attentive mind
Has no meaning but that
Which sees is truly seen.
No one loves rock, yet we are here.
Night chills. A flick
In the moonlight
Slips into Juniper shadow:
Back there unseen
Cold proud eyes
Of Cougar or Coyote
Watch me rise and go.

[Barrett Brassfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

Riprap:
“Lay down these words Before your mind like rocks. placed solid, by hands In choice of place, set Before the body of the mind in space and time: Solidity of bark, leaf, or wall riprap of things: Cobble of milky way, straying planets. These poems, people, lost ponies with Dragging saddles and rocky sure-foot trails. The worlds like an endless four-dimensional Game of Go. ants and pebbles In the thin loam, each rock a word a creek-washed stone Granite: ingrained with torment of fire and weight Crystal and sediment linked hot all change, in thoughts, As well as things.”

From the author: “The title Riprap celebrates the work of hands, the placing of rock, and my first glimpse of the image of the whole universe as interconnected, interpenetrating, mutually reflecting, and mutually embracing.”

[Dree · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this for May 2024 Calfifornia Book Club.

This is Snyder's first published collection (1959), and the first thing I have read from him. IKt is a mix of his own poetry (Riprap), Cold Mountain Poems are translated and by the Chinese poet Han-shan, who lived AD 600s or 700s.

My favorites here are the ones about the Sierra Nevada and outdoor work: Hay for the Horses, Thin Ice, the Piute Creek poems. While reading I wondered where Piute Creek is, as they reminded me of Fresno County around Shaver Lake (particularly the granite). The Afterword explains that he worked in Yosemite along Piute Creek--so not far at all from Shaver. Same granite formation, most likely.

I am curious about Snyder's later work--there is A LOT, and he also won a Pulitzer.

[Simon Pockley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Snyder talks about poems 'with minimal surface texture, with complexities hidden at the bottom of the pool, under the bank,a dark old lurking, no fancy flavour.' I found his strongest poems were when he was a sea. Something about the enclosure of ships suited him a little better than the freeedom of the mountians where he seemed to me to be stumped for words. But this may have been because I needed to get used to his tendency to use words like paint. I really wanted this little book to come alive with the Cold Mountain poems. After the untintelligible preface, it didn't.

...such a trifling move
& such spectacular results
now I have to paint the wall again
& salvage only from it all a poem

(Goofing Again p.58)

[Kem White · Rating 4 out of 5]

Riprap is a nice collection of 23 poems by Gary Snyder. "Hay for the Horses" was my favorite among the collection and probably Snyder's best known poem. Most of the poems were inspired by the jobs he had as a youth. "At five a.m. off the north coast of Sumatra" was another excellent poem in this collection. Very exciting. There was only one that I disliked though that was likely due to my ignorance about Japan. Cold Mountain Poems were translated by Snyder from old Japanese. They were only OK but were an interesting historical note. Overall I was neutral to them. Recommended particularly if you're looking for the original source of "Hay for the Horses."

[David Garza · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I would rather own each title as its own stand-alone edition, I picked up this twofer to get a taste of Gary Snyder, whom I had never taken the time to actually sit down and read. I appreciated both the Riprap and the Cold Mountain sections, but Riprap was more meaningful and allowed to me be in the moment more. You get more "Gary Snyder" out of Riprap because they are his original poems. I would re-read both, but head for his mountains of the American West before I go traipsing towards his summit in China.

[Elizabeth ✨💕 · Rating 4 out of 5]

*school read

Gary, Jack truly did you dirty in the Dharma Bums, because your character was insufferable (along with everyone else in that book, so I suppose the slight wasn’t targeted, maybe Jack just hated all of you including himself). However, I did really really like your poetry. Although I had no relation with any of its subject besides an affinity (although a very tentative one that is mostly practiced at a distance) for nature, this collection of poetry was very resonating. I loved its style. Way to go :)

[Caroline (readtotheend on IG) · Rating 3 out of 5]

3I'm not the best person to be reviewing poetry as I don't read a lot of it. But as a lay person just reading these poems, I enjoyed the nature aspects of this collection especially in the Riprap section and I appreciated the translation of the Cold Mountain poem section as well. I think more nature enthusiasts would appreciate this more.