Danger on Peaks is Gary Snyder’s most recent book of poetry. Recent being 2004.
It is also the book I purchased when Snyder read at the Folger Shakespeare Library as the final reader in 2011-2012 poetry season.
What do I think?
Danger on Peaks is good but not great. Not his best work. Not up to earlier works like Turtle Island (the first of his collections that I ever encountered).
His conversational, semi-narrative tone is still strong, but sometimes it can come close to touching on parody – the wilderness activist, living life (somewhat) off the grid – but fortunately does not actually cross over.
But there’s no question that too many lines (though fortunately, not many complete poems) miss their mark.
He’s at his best when he experiments with form, especially playing with Asian influenced forms and styles. When he does that, he gets furthest away from those aspects of his work that get too close to the ‘Gary Snyder, wilderness man nature poet, myth.’
When he indulges in the nature-loving equivalent to macho male posturing, he can write lines like this:\
I just finished a five page letter to the County Supervisors
dealing with a former supervisor,
now a paid lobbyist,
who has twisted the facts and gets paid for his lies. Do I
have to deal with this creep? I do.
I’m frankly over knee jerk criticisms of politicians. Even if you don’t share my belief that most are actually decent people, trying to do something useful (particularly at the local level), surely we can agree that just dropping a criticism of politicians and lobbyists “paid for [their] lies” is crude, knee jerk hackneyism.
But then, in another poem, he plays with something deeper about nature (and, as it typical of the better poems in this collection, also plays with form).
Saying, “this was me”
scat sign of time and mood and placelanguage us breath, claw, or tongue
Also, in that particular excerpt, kudos to Snyder for using the oxford comma!
Good stuff, that one.
Before I go, check out this article/interview with Snyder.
the coffee philosopher 