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The Selected Letters of Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder, 1956-1991 | 
| Authors: Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsberg
Creator: Bill Morgan
Publisher: Counterpoint
Category: Book
List Price: $28.00
Buy New: $18.48
You Save: $9.52 (34%)
Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 73087
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.7
ISBN: 1582434441
Dewey Decimal Number: 808
EAN: 9781582434445
Publication Date: November 25, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
One of the central relationships in the Beat scene was the long-lasting friendship of Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder. Ginsberg introduced Snyder to the East Coast Beat writers, including Jack Kerouac, while Snyder himself became the model for the serious poet that Ginsberg so wanted to become. Snyder encouraged Ginsberg to explore the beauty of the West Coast and, even more lastingly, introduced Ginsberg to Buddhism, the subject of so many long letter exchanges between them. Beginning in 1956 and continuing through 1991, the two men exchanged more than 850 letters. Bill Morgan, Ginsberg’s biographer and an important editor of his papers, has selected the most significant correspondence from this long friendship. The letters themselves paint the biographical and poetic portraits of two of America’s most important—and most fascinating—poets.
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| Customer Reviews:
Beat poets bond December 18, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Allen Ginsberg was, of course, the Great Beat(nik) Poet who achived early fame/infamy with "Howl" and thereafter maintained a very public profile. Gary Snyder was the model for Jack Kerouac's Japhy Ryder in "The Dharma Bums" and is an excellent, if lesser known, poet (Snyder won a Pulitzer Prize for "Turtle Island" in the 1970s) and environmental activist. The two met shortly before their participation in the legendary San Francisco 6 Gallery reading in 1955 and maintained a correspondence until near the time of Ginsberg's death in 1997.
The selected letters offer insight into the personalities and lives of two key figures in the 1950s beat literary movement which would form a foundation for the 1960s counter-culture as well as the ecological movement of the present day. Ginsberg roamed the world and made his way into the inner sanctums of pop culture. When you run across references to Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, and even Uma Thurman in the book's index, rest assured their mention comes in a Ginsberg letter. Meanwhile, Snyder spent the last half of the 1950s and much of the 1960s in Japan studying Zen Buddhism. The two, along with their companions, traveled around India in the early 1960s and later organized the San Francisco Be-In. In the 1980s and 1990s academia slowly came around to recognizing the literary accomplishment of the beat movement and both writers found themselves re-cast as honored elder statesmen. Snyder served as a member of the California Arts Council under Governor Jerry Brown and accepted a teaching post at UC Davis.
As Gary Snyder observes in his introduction (he's one of the last of the beat pioneers standing), he prodded Allen into walking more and Allen prodded him into talking more--and he feels the results were beneficial for both. Certainly reading these collected letters is beneficial to those of us who admire the work of both and appreciate the opportunity to learn more about the persons behind the personas. Read this and ponder if our email and cell phone culture will preserve the entertaining interplay of lofty thoughts and low gossip between two noteworthy individuals as this collection of letters has.
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