China and the West

Snyder, Gary. Riprap [ID D29318].
Lay down these words
Before your mind like rocks.
placed solid, by hands
In choice of place, set
Before the body of the mind
in space and time:
Solidity of bark, leaf, or wall
riprap of things:
Cobble of milky way,
straying planets,
These poems, people,
lost ponies with
Dragging saddles—
and rocky sure-foot trails.
The worlds like an endless
four-dimensional
Game of Go.
ants and pebbles
In the thin loam, each rock a word
a creek-washed stone
Granite: ingrained
with torment of fire and weight
Crystal and sediment linked hot
all change, in thoughts,
As well as things.

Sekundärliteratur
Joan Qinglin Tan : Snyder refers to his work 'Riprap' as a labourer in the mountains and at sea, dedicating his firs lyrical book to those who worked 'in the woods & at sea'. This work also signifies what was occurring within his mind, as he became a practitioner of meditation on Chan, landscape and ecology. The latter is closer to the Chinese tradition. Though there is no unified style in 'Riprap', some poems are obviously successful imitation of Chinese Chan poetry. With nature-Chan images, the reader can detect the basic Chan teachings. Snyder's great innovation lies in his own unique ideogrammic method – riprapping, a result of his turning to Chan, Han Shan and Chinese landscape poetry.
'Riprap' can be seen as Snyder's formal aesthetic statement in poetic form. The poem itself is a good example of presenting the reader with 'the complexity far beneath the surface texture'. To create visual effects, Snyder mimics Chinese landscape paintings o give appropriate blank space. He often deals with this through his use of indented lines, that is, through a visual and spatial dismemberment of the line into small units. The arrangement of lines, when seen from the bottom, like solid rocky steps up a mountain. To express ineffable nonduality, emptiness and 'satori', Snyder likes to employ phrases as compositional units and small nature-Chan images. The image of burning rocks alludes to sudden 'satori' after the Buddhist fire. Through burning, all things are changed. People achieve transcendence in a similar way to the transformation of rocks into granite, crystal and sediment. To illustrate the nature of nature, he often borrows features of Chinese classical poetry. Riprapping, as a method in Snyder's ecopoetry, is a response to the wilderness and to nature. To express his ecological concerns, he chose Chan, not Christianity as one of the riprapping ways. He explained that Chan is 'a way of using your mind and practicing your life and doing it with other people', which inevitably involves 'responsibility and commitment'.