Gary Snyder
Gary Snyder (born May 8, 1930) is an American poet, best known for his work with Buddhist and environmental themes.He was born in San Francisco, but grew up in the Pacific Northwest, attending Reed College, along with Philip Whalen and Lew Welch.
He is associated with the Beat Generation group of writers -- Jack Kerouac wrote about him as Japhy Ryder in the novel The Dharma Bums.
He was not a member of the original New York circle, but rather entered the scene through an association with Kenneth Rexroth. Snyder performed at the famous poetry reading at the Six Gallery in San Francisco on October 13, 1955.
Independently, a number of the Beats had become interested in Zen, but Snyder was one of the more serious (certainly one of the most academic) scholars of the subject. He engaged in graduate study of Asian languages at [[University of California, Berkeley| Berkeley]], and for much of the 1960s he was living in Japan, continuing his studies in a Zen monastery.
In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for his collection Turtle Island.
Since 1985, he has been a professor in the English department at the University of California, Davis.
