Quotation by Gary Snyder

Gary Snyder at Columbia University in 2007, via wikimedia, CC2.0

“A great poet does not express his or her self, he expresses all of our selves. And to express all of our selves you have to go beyond your own self. Like Dogen, the Zen master, said, “We study the self to forget the self. And when you forget the self, you become one with all things.”  Gary Snyder

Gary Snyder is a poet, essayist, lecturer, but most of all, a lover of the earth with a concern for the environment.   He has been called the poet laureate of Deep Ecology. is a winner of a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and many other awards. He is deeply influenced by Buddhism.  Now in his late 80’s, his work continues to speak to us of our place in the natural world.