Back on the Fire

Gary Snyder

Shoemaker & Hoard

In an author pho­to­graph on the back cover of Back on the Fire (Shoemaker & Hoard) Gary Snyder is shown look­ing west into the dis­tance (seen from the per­spec­tive of a Canadian reader look­ing south to the Sierra Nevada foothills, Snyder’s home for more than thirty years). He wears a straw cow­boy hat and two ear­rings in his right ear lobe, and his face is lined from years of squint­ing across land­scapes. As a young man Snyder worked in the woods of the Pacific Northwest, “from the Canadian bor­der down to Yosemite,” plant­ing trees, build­ing trails and going on the look­out for lightning-sparked wild­fires. These essays range in scope from the per­sonal to the plan­e­tary. In one, Snyder — accom­pa­nied by his son, Gen — searches for his mater­nal great-grandmother’s tomb­stone, weath­ered and hid­den by Kansas grass; in another he speaks on the role of writ­ers in the present-day “war against nature.” Several essays con­sider the role that fire plays in the deep ecol­ogy of forests, and while Snyder speaks par­tic­u­larly of his native Sierra forests, most of his insights apply not just to one spe­cific water­shed, but more gen­er­ally to what he refers to as “the big water­shed of the planet.” Snyder warns of the long-range effects of the choices we make in “this hyper-informed but his­tor­i­cally clue­less speeded-up con­tem­po­rary world.” Now seventy-six, Snyder has earned his sta­tus as respected poet and elder states­man, and these essays offer a good deal of Buddhist wis­dom to all who take the time to listen.