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Gary Snyder
(1930-)

Active: 1950- in USA, North America, Japan, Asia

(Gary Sherman Snyder)

By Patrick D. Murphy (University of Central Florida)

Indexing Data:

  • Active In: USA, North America, Japan, Asia
  • Born In: USA, North America
  • Activity: Poet, Scholar, Travel Writer, Essayist, Anthropologist, Political Activist, Teacher, Translator

Life, Works and Times

Reader Actions

Gary Snyder was born in San Francisco on May 8th, 1930. His parents, Harold and Lois, moved the family to Washington State in 1932 as his father looked for work during the Great Depression. The family lived on some logged-off land near Puget Sound where they raised cows to sell milk locally and cut shake shingles from stumps. Gary raised chickens to sell the eggs. On a trip to Seattle at around the age of ten or eleven Gary discovered the “mountains and rivers” scroll-landscape painting in the Seattle Art Museum and was overwhelmed by the similarity between the mountains of China and those of his home. In 1942, after his parents had separated, Lois moved with Gary and his sister Thea to Portland, Oregon, where he attended Linc

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First published 21 March 2002

Citation: Murphy, Patrick D.. "Gary Snyder". The Literary Encyclopedia. 21 March 2002.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4139, accessed 9 February 2010.]

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