Essay on Gary Snyder

In Refashioning Myth: Poetic Transformations and Metamorphoses, David McInnis, Eric Parisot & Jessica Wilkinson (eds.), (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2011), pp 139-60. Published with the permission of Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Note: It was only after this essay had been published that I realised I'd neglected to include the term 'bioregionalism', which is one frequently used by Snyder in recent years. A bioregion is 'a natural region, exhibiting diversity and stability, defined by its ecological coherence'; bioregionalism is 'the proposition that human ways of life should be compatible with the requirements of the diversity of biogregional communities of the planet' [Colin Johnson, The Green Dictionary (London: Macdonald Optima, 1991), p 30]. Snyder believes that people find meaning and purpose by identifying themselves with a particular bioregion. I hope it will be clear to readers of the essay that this is implicit in his 'quest for place'.