[Poetry Chaikhana] Gary Snyder - How Poetry Comes to Me

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How Poetry Comes to Me By Gary Snyder (1930 - )   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   -- from No Nature: New and Selected Poems, by Gary Snyder Amazon.com / Photo by Thelonious Gonzo /

============ Thought for the Day: Maybe the journey's end is just around the corner. Maybe it's right under your feet. ============

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Hi Omss -

This isn't one of those poems that makes you giddy with its language and vision. It's simple, even plain. But something about the image it conjures up is both haunting and inspiring to me.

Gary Snyder describes poetic inspiration as a shamanic encounter. I imagine the poet crouched before his small campfire out in the desert somewhere, with the vast black night all around him. And poetry comes, a creature of the Otherworld, shy and dangerous and unknown, drawn to the light yet keeping to shadow. Only a poet thinks to stand and turn, to walk to the edge of the well-lit world and peer into the unknown. The most dangerous poets extend a hand and say, "Welcome."

That's when the world is replenished with mystery.


...Anyone going camping this weekend?

Ivan


PS- Thanks for all the wonderful responses to my "punk manifesto" on Wednesday!

 

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