This Present Moment

Praise

“This Present Moment maintains Snyder’s steadfast, wise witnessing as he walks a Siberian Outpost meadow, gazes at clear–cut forest, or considers changing farmland in Italy. Snyder’s clearsightedness and meditative voice, even in the face of struggle or destruction, give the work much of its power.”—Christian Science Monitor

“Snyder has parceled out the decade since his last poetry collection (Danger on Peaks) into textured poems of a rare and welcome candor.”—Publisher’s Weekly

“[E]ach of the moments of these poems is completely open, even when, as in the long, particular poem about the death of Snyder’s late–life love, “Go Now,” it resounds with deep personal emotion. The moment of a Snyder poem is the “Eternal Now” of mindfulness and awareness, a good place to be.”—Booklist

“Snyder is an elder statesman of the natural world and the tribal unions of poetry. He has a body of work as original as predecessors William Carlos Williams and Wallace Stevens.”—The Bloomsbury Review

“His greatest strength—a quiet and profound elegance, an ability to write a simple phrase that seems to have been echoing through human consciousness for three or four thousand years.”—Lewis MacAdams, California Magazine

“This poet’s great gift has always been perfect visual clarity . . . and, needless to say, derives from Snyder’s vision in the larger sense.”—Paul Berman, Village Voice

“What thoughtful beauty! How skillfully Gary Snyder interfuses the practical knowledge of an animal sense with story, language, and song. True teachers in America are now an endangered species. I learn so much from this good man’s perception, humor, discipline, and love for this world.”—James Hillman