[New-Poetry] Gary Snyder Q&A

[jforjames at aol.com]

http://www.theunion.com/article/20071129/NEWS/111290127
Q & A with wordsmith Gary Snyder


By Pam Jung, pamj at theunion.com
» More from Pam Jung
12:01 a.m. PT Nov 29, 2007


GS: When I am working on prose (and I have published several books of prose essays, including my latest, "Back on the Fire"), it is necessary to work tirelessly and stay on schedule. Work means reading, research, interviewing people, etc., as well as just "writing," and then it also means editing and rewriting. 

The discipline of poetry requires that you keep yourself available. The muse "hits" unpredictably, almost like an accident. An artist keeps herself/ himself "accident-prone." And then there is the whole practice of order - files and notes - manuscripts at different levels of finish - and having a few good dictionaries always at hand. 


P: Any advice to offer poets?


GS: Poetry rises from deep feeling and a full engagement with life. But for feeling and engagement to become art takes knowledge, study and focus. For poets, the material we work with is language and its syntax, its music, its many ambiguous levels of meaning. 


I always told my students at Davis that they should read all the major poets in the English language from the Anglo-Saxon and Middle English on - it's not that huge a body of work. Just do it. And then become acquainted with continental poetry in translation and in one or more languages that you have learned to read. Look at the great poetic traditions of India and East Asia. And look at the songs and poems that pre-date the invention of writing. That's for starters. And never forget you are just one small body with a mysteriously large mind, in a place on earth with streams and rivers flowing through.



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