TURTLE ISLAND

Snyder's lifestyle has been disparaged as Beatnik/hippie/dropout (do we still believe they don't wash?) and pseudo-mystic, but anyone who follows the middle-class drum beat needs only a glance at his food or fuel bill or a whiff of dirty urban air for a reminder that all's not well with the man-made world. Or for a remembrance of how nice it used to be, read Gary Snyder's keenly observant poems about logging, hunting, ""burning,"" camping, and the call of the wild; ridges, valleys, creeks and falls; manzanita boughs, red-tailed hawks, curlews, whales, pine needles, Boletus mushrooms, night herons who ""nest in the cypress/by the San Francisco/ stationary boilers/ with the high smoke stack,"" and ""the Delight/ at the heart of creation."" They're like the water colors hanging on the walls of your country home, little rough-hewn visions of the living things with whom we share our planet (the ""Turtle Island"" of the title). No cosmic verities or trendy folderol here -- just the poems shining in their own light.