Back on the Fire

by Gary Snyder

This collection of essays by Gary Snyder, now in paperback, blazes with insight. In his most autobiographical writing to date, Snyder employs fire as a metaphor for the crucial moment when deeply held viewpoints yield to new experiences, and our spirits and minds broaden and mature. Snyder here writes and riffs on a wide range of topics, from our sense of place and a need to review forestry practices, to the writing life and Eastern thought. Surveying the current wisdom that fires are in some cases necessary for ecosystems of the wild, he contemplates the evolution of his view on the practice, while exploring its larger repercussions on our perceptions of nature and the great landscapes of the West. These pieces include recollections of his boyhood, his involvement with the literary community of the Bay Area, his travels to Japan, as well as his thoughts on American culture today. All maintain Snyder's reputation as an intellect to be reckoned with, while often revealing him at his most emotionally vulnerable. The final impression is We perceive not a collection of essays, but a cohesive presentation of Snyder's life and work expressed in his characteristically straightforward prose.

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Nature, Poetry, Environment, Ecology

160 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

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

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Back On The Fire by Gary Snyder

There are a quite a few of the twenty-seven essays here that I enjoyed. Snyder is a renowned wilderness writer and poet but I would like to point out that Snyder's "travel writing" is also enjoyable. I think in part in his travel essays work so well because the writing is still anchored around the natural world and history. Whether it is writing about the Alamo, a gravestone in rural Kansas, or a shrine in Japan he excels.

Here are my favorites:

1. Fires, Floods, and Following the Dao
2. The Ark of the Sierra
3. Writers and the War Against Nature
4. Entering the Fiftieth Millenium
5. Regarding "Smokey the Bear Sutra"
6. The Cottonwoods
7. Harriett Callicotte's Stone in Kansas

This is a close to a five star read but there are some essays and speeches where the content overlaps too much.

4.5 stars

[Joseph Hlebica · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't get how we're supposed to review a book we have not yet read, but I will recommend the author, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet/essayist Gary Snyder. Snyder has been described as the most significant of the former Beat Poets by more than a few scholars. Notably, when his cohort - which includes Alan Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gregory Corso, and a host of others - went crazy for drugs, alcohol, and hedonism, Snyder went East, becoming an ordained Zen Buddhist monk. That explains not only his longevity and admirable mental/physical health, but the influences in his poetry. His mentor, Kenneth Rexroth, would be proud. Formerly Poet Laureate of the State of California, Snyder is on the faculty of the University of California, Davis, and has lived with his family on his farm in the Sierra foothills for a generation. His list of works outstrips all of the former beats put together, so why all the focus on that gang of dead druggies, when we still have Snyder alive and well and with us?

[Missmmking · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this before the Big Sur fire was even on the map. My sister has a Silicon Valley retreat place there in the Los Padres National Forest. As a city dweller - renting home...it's curious how a fire can get under your skin just hearing about it's path.
Yet I don't have any real feeling for a vacation house demise. I do feel something for a friend who was burned out of his apartment building on Woodward Street & then went down to live at Tassjara & was evacuated. That was a double fire yammy for him. Really homeless.
Whihc leads me to the homeless kids in GG park after the AIDS walk and they got a enormous feast from "the leftover waste" that the walking masses left behind.

Fire - quick like a snake.

Clear essays on different approaches and concepts regarding time and what is ours and what is nature's. Relating to fire as a wise partner.

[Rob Woodard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice collection of relatively recent Snyder essays, going over his usual ground of general ecological thought, bioregionalism, poetry, and Buddhism/Daoist traditions. The earlier parts of the volume are the best. here Snyder goes some very interesting discussions of California and world ecology that rank with best essays on the subject. The latter half of the book mainly collects introductions and forwards he's done for other people's books. For the most part these are worth reading, but they simply don't have the importance of the book's earlier sections. Overall, though, very good stuff.

[Jim Parker · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a collection of essay most are very interesting. Many are the forewords to other books.

I very much enjoy essays as a literary form but I also know I don't understand what is expected of in this form. Snyder being a poet fills his essays with wonderful images and makes use of all the literary devices. Trying to remember from my creative writing course in high school from Wayne Wooten just what is suppose to be in one of these. However, I'm sure if I could have ever written a single one as good as even the worst of these I would have received an "A".

[Erica · Rating 4 out of 5]

i'm incapable of rating snyder anything less than a 4. that said, i felt like a lot of this collection consisted of some less inspired revisitations to his usual themes, and i'm never quite clear on the reasons for publishing a bunch of introductions to other people's books in a collection of essays, and there was a little too much of that here for me to be totally enthralled. but still. it's gary snyder. what can i say.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ecologically, Snyder has been ahead of the curve for decades. An important thinker who, like David Brower, was for decades a prophetic voice.

[George Coologeorgen]

Very insightful in regards to the interaction between man, animals, and the general ecosystem.

[Joseph Hlebica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everything I need to know about forestry management in the Sierra Nevada watershed, by a lifelong forester and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet.

[Mat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Back on the Fire is a collection of essays by the renowned beat and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, social and environmental activist, Gary Snyder. Of course, many people may have first heard of Snyder, as Japhy Ryder, one of the two unforgettable protagonists of Kerouac’s classic, The Dharma Bums, a book which, incidentally, inspired me even more than On the Road.

Throughout these essays and lectures, Snyder glibly discusses not only his own ethics and concerns about the world but also nostalgically reflects on moments from his life and he has had a very eventful one too, as a log-setter working in a trail-crew, as a fledgling poet in the early days of the consciousness-shattering San Francisco poetry renaissance scene, going to Japan to be one of the first westerners to study and practice Zen in all earnestness before coming back to build his Kitkitdizze home in the foothills of the Sierra-Nevada.

In these essays, Snyder comes out swinging – at us, at Mankind, and he himself does not escape unscathed. Right now, we live in a world on the brink of ecological disaster and nuclear holocaust but Snyder reminds us that there is every reason for optimism if we choose the right path wisely. Snyder is absolutely correct when he says that “as for stewardship, or trust, we can see that the whole world is in the trust of humans now, whether we want this responsibility or not”.

He goes on to warn us of the dangers of hunting species out of existence, even species often reviled or feared such as rattlesnakes or lions.They are here for a reason – “if God hadn’t wanted all these critters to be around, including rattlesnakes and cougars, he wouldn’t have put them on the Ark” – here he is appealing directly to the Judeo-Christian conservatives.

There are many things we can criticize about China but perhaps their “one-child policy” is not so crazy after all. Snyder states, “but what the heck, why not shrink the human population and truly leave space for the other critters? The criteria for human carrying capacity must include genuine diversity of species in their needed large wild habitat. Not just as tokenism. Quality over quantity”. As someone who experiences extreme discomfort every day on a crowded commuter train as I ride into Tokyo, I strongly agree with this sentiment. People who focus on economy first over quality of living will of course disagree with me. To me, population density is a very serious problem which needs to be considered as a powerful counterweight to the economically-centred popular idea of increasing the birth rate, to increase the number of potential workers (the majority of whom are miserable I might add) in order to boost the economy for the power that be. In my opinion, we need ways to sustain the population, not increase it, without derailing the economy completely. But as Snyder reminds us gently, maybe it is time for us to return to simpler ways, where we are at one with Nature. I would love that. I would really love that - but I don't see that happening. Snyder is most definitely an incorrigible idealist but I love him for it. Besides, there are too many cynics these days anyway. A revolutionary ecological idealist is a great breath of fresh air in today's bleak extreme consumer-oriented and materialistic world.

So why is it so important to look after our forests, our oceans and our wildlife? Snyder sums up the importance of our responsibility pithily saying, “many would agree that one measure of sustainability is the maintenance of the richness of the original biodiversity. Maintenance of biodiversity may sometimes be inconvenient, but it is the law of the land, as well as the ethical requirement that comes to us as stewards of the planet”. As Snyder beautifully and elegantly describes it in his seminal poem, "The Song of the Taste", we are all connected through the food chains, passing on energy to each other.

So what do we need to do? First of all, we certainly cannot afford to be ostriches with our heads in the sand hoping that all of our problems are going to magically go away. That is what Snyder is saying, nay urging us to do. Begging us. One of the dangers of nationalism is well known – it can lead to fascism and in extreme cases, war. Well, Snyder has made me realize that another danger of nationalism is the narrow-mindedness that results, what the Japanese sometimes refer to as the “Galapagos Syndrome” where we tell ourselves, fool ourselves into believing that the world does not exist outside our window, let alone outside our borders. But everything is interconnected in minute, beautiful and intricate ways that we can only guess at. We need to work together. If Mankind wants to take a true ‘Great Leap Forward’ one day, it will need to resolve its differences, recognize and appreciate its biodiversity, variety of religions, sexualities and races and embrace it all and, most importantly, CONQUER OUR FEAR OF WHAT WE DON'T KNOW AND DON'T UNDERSTAND. That is the ultimate loto prize, to my mind, of ALL TIME if we can one day pull it off. As Snyder tells us, this is where artists (poets, writers, painters, musicians etc.) enter and play a crucial role in trying to win the hearts and minds of the various peoples who are spread across our beautiful planet.

Snyder really sums up my own sentiments best when he says, “the size of the place that one becomes a member of is limited only by the size of one’s heart. We speak of watershed consciousness, and the great water-cycle of the planet makes it one watershed. We are all natives to this earth”. As soon as the majority of us recognize this and achieve this, then victory is surely ours. And when I say 'victory', some of you may be thinking, 'who are we battling against'? Well, we are fighting against ourselves, the greatest enemy.

Snyder is not only one of the most important poets still alive today, he is one of the most important intellectuals around well worth your time and patience. Read him, and read him again (as I will). His messages are vital for the well-being of all human and nonhuman beings.

The majority of these essays are fascinating and enlightening. The only downside of this book (hence the four-star rating) is that some of the content from one essay overlaps and repeats what we have already read elsewhere. I found this a little annoying at times. Otherwise, this is a great read. Highly recommended for all people who love poetry, the beats, the environment, folk tales and especially and most importantly for people who are concerned about our current state of affairs and are looking for some ways to do something about it. Gary Snyder has a voice and a message that you need to hear.

[Lora · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book of assorted essays — some of them more potent than others. Where Snyder shines is in his simple presence and description of place. He writes of the land as someone who has worked on it, lived on it, and observed it with a humility. Fire is a theme and motif that returns throughout the book, and a helpful anchor for the worldview Snyder brings forward. Like fire in California and the PNW, “nature” and “wilderness” at large should not be feared, or seen through a strict lens of Good and Bad. Snyder looks at them through history far beyond the last several decades, or political angles. His angle is one of someone willing to pull up his shirt sleeves and tend to the land in relationship—not antagonism.

[Keith Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe not as essential as other collections of Snyder's essays, but still important. And given all the fires that have burned California since this book came out, there is a quality of prophecy in this book -- as there is in much of Snyder's work. The Old Man on the Mountain sees things!

Here's a piece I wrote about this many years ago:

https://annarborobserver.com/articles...

[Peter Thwaites · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good collection - especially the first half. It is a little fragmentary, only held together very loosely by the theme of fire, and it lacks the sharp focus of the other of his essay collections I've read - The Practice of the Wild. But the short length of many of these essays means that they are less complex than that book, and as such this would make a pretty good introduction for newcomers to his style and his ideas.

[Anthony · Rating 3 out of 5]

I do not recommend this as an introduction to Snyder, since this rehashed compilation of essays and book reviews does little justice to his unique voice and compelling connection to nature. For those familiar with his poetry, maybe this will open you to a couple of new essays delivered on Buddhism or Asian-Western relations.

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Snyder is my literary spirit guide. I much prefer his poems over these essays, but what these pieces do provide is a look at thoroughly subsumed he is in his back country Zen existence. And, above most things, he values the sustainability of wilderness, the love of friends and family, and good honest work.

Recommended for chicken sexers.

[Audrey Bennett · Rating 3 out of 5]

A really neat thinker. The collection was a bit disorganized but left behind a very interesting trail of breadcrumbs to follow.

[Jules Travis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Gary Snyder’s cross cultural analyses of natural systems and I’m fascinated by his career pathways through literature, being part of Beat circles, US Forest Service seasonal labor, and background in Japanese/Buddhist/Eastern poetry and philosophy. I love these essays because they cover a lot of ground and lend themselves to a really thorough push towards a gentler, more holistic worldview that allows humanity to reenter what we consider natural and wild.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

"In his most autobiographical writing to date, Gary Snyder employs fire as a metaphor for the crucial moment when deeply held viewpoints yield to new experiences, and our spirits and minds broaden and mature. He writes and riffs on a wide range of topics, from explorations of southwestern European Paleolithic cave art, to his own personal poetic history with haiku; from pungent reminiscences of youthful West Coast logging and trail crew days, to talks given in Paris and Tokyo on art and archetypes. He honors poets of his generation, like Philip Whalen and Allen Ginsberg, and meditates on art, labor and the making of families, houses, and homesteads. The final impression is holistic. We perceive not a collection of essays, but a cohesive presentation of Snyder's life and work expressed in his characteristically straightforward prose."
~~back cover

Interesting read, especially as he lives in my back yard as it were, and his perceptions about the foothill ecosystems and fire cut to the heart of the matter, and really resonate in this summer of high fuel loads and hot weather. I had more difficulty accessing the Japanese material -- nothing about Japan and its culture resonate with me (except for tempura, which I adore.) I'm leaning more & more towards Buddhism these days, so my lack of connection with Asian cultures surprises me. But there it is.

A good sturdy little book, but not as brilliant as I'd hoped it would be,

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Books of essays are tough to begin with, easily disjointed, but this suffers from being a compendium of work written for other purposes. That said, Snyder is still Snyder, with valuable insight and perspective. I did get a sense for his life and the evolution of his thinking with this book, and it's worthwhile reading. But not how I would choose to introduce someone to his work.

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a retread of the better essays in the last collection of Snyder's essays I read, though with a higher focus on fire and its role in the healthy ecology of the Californian landscape. The second half was all introductions to other people's books, so only for the Snyder superfan.

[Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

read it and weep

[Artie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sweet this type of jazz is totally eco dude.

[Jonas]

love Snyder's poetry, been overwhelmed by some of his essays in the past but this one is getting tons of press, so will give it a shot next week when i have some time to devote to geeking out.

[Frederick Gault · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written by a true warrior poet. Even while reading about the eco-disaster unfolding in "the world watershed" the reader is soothed. This is a warrior fighting for justice with gentleness and wisdom.

[Paul Rack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful collection of essays, reviews, speeches, etc. by Snyder, one of America's greatest poets.