Regarding Wave

by Gary Snyder

Central to the work is a cycle of songs for Snyder's wife, Masa, and their first son, Kai. Probing even further than Snyder's previous collection of poems, The Back Country, this volume freshly explores "the most archaic values on earth...the fertility of the soil, the magic of animals, the power-vision in solitude, the terrifying initiation and rebirth, the love and ecstasy of the dance, the common work of the tribe..." (copied from rear cover)

Genres: Poetry

93 pages, Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

Gary Snyder is an American poet, essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist. His early poetry has been associated with the Beat Generation and the San Francisco Renaissance and he has been described as the "poet laureate of Deep Ecology". Snyder is a winner of a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the American Book Award. His work, in his various roles, reflects an immersion in both Buddhist spirituality and nature. He has translated literature into English from ancient Chinese and modern Japanese. For many years, Snyder was an academic at the University of California, Davis, and for a time served as a member of the California Arts Council.

Reviews

[Урош · Rating 4 out of 5]

Необична и суперишка књига. Снајдер спаја Америку, Јапан и песнике династије Танг.

Every hill, still
Every tree alive. Every leaf
All the slopes flow,
old woods,new seedlings,
tall grasses, plumes

[Barrett Brassfield · Rating 3 out of 5]

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW TO BE A POET

all you can about animals as persons,
the names of trees and flowers and weeds,
names of stars, and the movements of the planets
and the moon.
your own six senses, with a watchful and elegant mind.
at least one kind of traditional magic:
divination, astrology, the book of changes, the tarot;
dreams.
the illusory demons and illusory shining gods;
kiss the ass of the devil and eat shit;
fuck his homy barbed cock,
fuck the hag,
and all the celestial angels
and maidens perfum’d and golden—
& then love the human: wives husbands and friends.
childrens’ games, comic books, bubble-gum,
the weirdness of television and advertising.
work, long dry hours of dull work swallowed and accepted
and livd with and finally lovd. exhaustion,
hunger, rest.
the wild freedom of the dance, extasy
silent solitary illumination, enstasy
real danger, gambles, and the edge of death.”

From Regarding Wave
By Gary Snyder

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I may be overly cynical reading this now, with a different set of ideas about what things mean in people, but Snyder's obsessions, and they way they interact with the faith he has adopted from other cultures and an obsession with sex strike me as kind of gross. Not because sex or changing religions is problematic, but because acting as if your stoned hippy interests are actual knowledge or wisdom comes off as smug and patriarchal.
That being said, he describes nature in both a concrete and pleasingly lyrical way. I just wish that was what he stuck with.

[Lamoreaux · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one has the same kind of raw vitality that comes across in The Back Country and Riprap. In particular, "Roots," "Song of the Tangle," and "The Wild Edge" are thoughtful, sensuous, down to earth, and as new today as they were 40-odd years ago, real joys to read.

[Grady Ormsby · Rating 3 out of 5]

There has been a perennial debate over whether (or how) poetry should be accessible. On one side there are those who represent "the mainstream," and feel poetry should appeal to a common reader, communicating universal experiences in a plain and "accessible" language. On the other side there are the "the experimentalists," who feel that language should challenge universality, undermine conventions, and renew language's eccentricities.

Regarding Wave by Gary Snyder is definitely in the second classification. I enjoyed it. I was definitely challenged by it. I Googled a lot of references. And in many instances I remained puzzled. Like many of the Beat poets, Snyder was a student of Zen Buddhism. Many of his poems are like haiku and evoke koans. Predominant in his poems are the textures, patterns and changes of nature. Many are observational giving the reader moments frozen in time and slices of life. Snyder has published dozens of volumes of poetry. Pick one out, but be prepared to do a little work.

[Aloysiusi Lionel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first time I read Gary Snyder's poetry was when a poet-friend gifted me Myths & Texts. It was also my first encounter with that distinct poetic form, deviating from the rudiments of rhyme and meter, without losing the pulchritude of rhythm. The same, effortless style is manifested in Regarding Wave, a book of "music" the traveler-poet found in the running water, in the beauty of canyons and cliffs, in the suburbs of architecturally compulsive Japan, in his own exoticizing gaze of domestic love, and in his wife and son which serve as the genuine sources of his strength to go the distance. I might not be totally drawn by his poetics, but I praise his insistence that Nature gives man the guts to devote himself in the realms of the supernatural.

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

THE TRADE

I found myself inside a massive concrete shell
lit by glass tubes, with air pumped in, with
levels joined by moving stairs.
It was full of the things that were bought and made
in the twentieth century. Layed out in trays
or shelves
The throngs of people of that century, in their style,
clinging garb made on machines.
Were trading all their precious time
for things

[Julien L · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great mix of nature and personal poetry. This is powerful reading in 2019

[Lukas Evan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Damn hippies

[Nathan Ward · Rating 2 out of 5]

This guy followed his stereotype perfectly

[Dean Oken · Rating 4 out of 5]

the voice NOW

[Kitap Yakıcı · Rating 3 out of 5]

Regarding Wave was my introduction to Gary Snyder, and it left me in that interesting middle space: I could tell there was something here—but I wasn’t fully inside it yet.

Opening hook / context:

Coming in cold, this felt like encountering a system already in motion. The tone is calm, the lines are clean, and there’s a sense of disciplined attention running through everything. But at first pass, it read more like form than force.

What it’s trying to do:

This isn’t poetry aiming for dramatic effect or emotional sweep. It’s doing something quieter: cultivating awareness. Attention to nature, to relationship, to the rhythms of lived experience. Not trying to overwhelm you—more like inviting you to notice.

There’s a strong current of integration here—human life, landscape, and feeling held in a kind of steady balance. Nothing inflated, nothing forced.

Where it works:

The restraint is real, and when it lands, it lands clean. There are moments where a few simple lines carry more weight than a page of more “impressive” poetry. You can feel that this is coming from practice, not performance.

It also establishes Snyder’s voice clearly: grounded, attentive, uninterested in spectacle. That alone made me curious enough to keep going.

Where it struggles (for me, at the time):

As an entry point, it felt a bit too refined—like arriving after the system has already stabilized. I could see the clarity, but I didn’t yet feel the source of it. The poems often seemed to gesture toward something deeper without fully pulling me into it.

Instead of “this reveals something,” I kept landing on “there’s something here I’m not quite accessing yet.”

Final orientation:

This turned out to be a doorway, not a destination.

Reading it first, then moving to Myths & Texts and later Axe Handles, made the arc visible. Regarding Wave is the refinement phase—the clarity that comes after contact and integration—but without that context, it can feel a little distant.

Three stars. Respectful, disciplined, and quietly strong—but for me, it functioned more as an introduction to a system than a full experience of it.

[Craig Werner · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the Library of America Gary Snyder (as I continue reading my way through his complete poetry, which is a joy).

Snyder entering the 1960s, as indicated by a brief mention of People's Park. There's little sense of the outside turmoil, although we know that he was present for many defining moments, notably the Great Human Be-In. it makes for a fascinating contrast with the poetry his good friend Allen Ginsberg wrote at the same time, which can stand in for the newspapers if you're so inclined.

Anyway, the focus here is on Snyder's rhythms of perception as he moves into domestic life--some wonderful poems about his wife and son--"Meeting the Mountain" is quite delightful as a glimpse of parenting--,travels, mostly to Japan, and continues to develop his synthesis of indigenous and zen perspectives. Not a lot of the poems that are central to my sense of Snyder, but many that echo the themes of mind interacting with the experienced world. Undulations connecting the inner and outer and the people around him.

I was more aware than usual on this re-reading, probably my fourth over the course of my life, of how my responses to Snyder depend on how settled I am in my reading environment. I always note poems that are speaking to me and this time there were clusters and sequences. That may be for reasons embedded in the work, but it also may be because those days I was more receptive.

Anyway, a few lines to reflect where I found the center c. 2023:

From "All the Spirit Powers Went to Their Dancing Place":

Swift beings, green beings, all beings--all persons,
the two-legged beings
shine in smooth skin and their furred spots

Drinking clear water together
together turning and dancing
speaking new words,
the first time, for

Air, fire, water, and
Earth is our dancing place now.


Other favorite poems: "Wave," "The Wide Mouth," "Revolution in the Revolution in the Revolution," "Beating Wings," "Poke Hole Fishing after the March," "Meeting the Mountains," "Long Hair."

[Gavin]

Snyder is my favorite living poet. Regarding Wave in New Directions paperback includes the sexiest poem I've ever read. "Song of the Tangle" lives on just one little page of a book originally published in the 1960's. If you are the kind of person who imagines romantic encounters that include the reading of a poem, if you meet a partner who won't smirk when you pull out a book, give "Song of the Tangle" a try. I hope I get the chance to share it one day.

[Janine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best poetry I've ever read.

[Stephen Kirbach]

I've owned this book for years and keep coming back to it. Now I want to drag it out into the light again.

[amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

He's onto something, living with a calm soul, I think.

[Scott Adelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

the man still levels my head.

[Kirsten]

this may be the sexiest book of all time.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

like a japanese whitman. even though he's american...

[Mara · Rating 4 out of 5]

"What you Should Know to Be a Poet" is such a classic!

[Holly Fortune · Rating 3 out of 5]

Original living.

[Mills College Library]

811.54 S675w 1970