Well this is serendipitous — Poetry Magazine has an interview with Gary Snyder, by Alan Williamson! When I was at Davis, Gary taught a course about Zen in classical Chinese and Japanese poetry. Basically, he came in once a week and gave us a Dharma talk, then we looked at the poems. Alan also teaches at Davis, and he sat in on the course (along with a couple of other professors). Alan is one of the nicest people on the planet, and one day, as we were all happily bashing away at the English Romantics for being dualistic, he gently piped in from his corner of the conference table. “I think you’re making something of a straw man out of the Romantics,” he said. And then proceeded to give an exquisite exegesis of how the Romantics weren’t as dualistic as we all thought they were. That course alone was worth the 7 years I spent in graduate school. It was an astonishing 10 weeks. Go read the interview — it’s delightful.
cmf
I'm a writer and editor based in Livingston, Montana. I moved to Livingston from the San Francisco Bay area in 2002 in search of affordable housing and a small community with a vibrant arts community. I found both. LivingSmall details my experience buying and renovating a house, building a garden, becoming a part of this community. It also chronicles my efforts to rebuild my life after the sudden death of my younger brother, and closest companion, Patrick in a car wreck.