Snyder's "Turtle Island"

Turtle Island won Gary Snyder the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1975. The book is divided into four parts: “Manzanita,” “Magpie’s Song,” “For the Children,” and “Plain Talk.” Though this is a book of poetry, the last section is prose-y, covering the broader philosophical foundations from which the poems are driven. “Plain Talk” includes pieces like “Four Changes,” written “in response to an evident need for a few practical and visionary suggestions (91).” “Four Changes” explicates pressing environmental complexities associated with population, pollution, consumption, and transformation by breaking down each larger issue into sections titled The Condition (position, situation, and goal), and Action (social/political, the community, in our own heads).

The subject matter of the text works because it is entirely reflective of the deep ecology worldview and associated environmentalism taking hold during the time period in which the book was published. April 22, 1970 marked the first designation and celebration of Earth Day, a response to a public outcry regarding highly visible and immediate environmental problems. As per the introductory note, “Turtle Island” itself represents the continent of North America in Snyder’s writing.

Snyder relies heavily on the intrinsic value of nature as his inspiration. The underlying conflict in his writing seems to be the ways in which development of humanity compromises the natural world. “One Should Not Talk To A Skilled Hunter About What is Forbidden By The Buddha” begins: “A gray fox, female, nine pounds three ounces. / 39 5/8” long with tail.” Then in the beginning of the second stanza: “Stomach content: a whole ground squirrel well chewed / plus one lizard foot.” Flora and fauna show up in nearly every poem, oftentimes embodying themes which reflect the ‘circle of life’ and the ways in which we influence it. As is exemplified in this poem, we are often shown the beauty and complexities of nature through a somewhat-disturbing lens.

As far as the form and structure of Snyder’s poems go, there seems to be just about every type of experimentation possible going on. Caesura is used differently everywhere. Some poems end with little images or drawings; some have little symbols or roman numerals between sections (not stanzas). Some poems begin or end with a quote, or a dedication, or a date and location. Some poems are just a few lines and some are much longer. “The Dazzle” is center-justified. “Facts” is a literal list of facts numbered one through ten (for example: “6. General Motors is bigger than Holland.”). “Two Immortals” is written in paragraph form. “What Happened Here Before” is a literal geologic-scale timeline of Turtle Island, with sections labeled by numbers of years ago that these events happened: “-80,000,000- / sea-bed strata raised and folded, / granite far below.”

Repetition is used in varying contexts throughout the text. Though there is slant rhyme and playful rhyme sprinkled throughout the collection, the only poem that is fully committed to a rhyme scheme is “The Wild Mushroom.” This playful poem is a sort of tribute to fungus: “So here’s to the mushroom family / A far-flung friendly clan / For food, for fun, for poison / They are a help to man.” Overall, Snyder uses language that is plain but effective, and “Straight Creek—Great Burn” ends with the line: “end of poem.”

In the poem “Coyote Valley Spring,” there is a line that says: “white and solemn toloache flower”. I looked up this toloache plant and found a host of interesting and complex information about it. It is toxic and potentially fatal if ingested. It emits a foul odor similar to rancid peanut butter when crushed or bruised. Its flowers bloom at night. It was used by the Aztecs as a poultice for wounds. It was also used as an entheogen for hallucinations and rites of passage. It can be used as a pain reliever, but with great risk as there are wide variations in plant toxicity. I was looking for, perhaps, an image of this plant and an associated geography, and what I learned was flooring. There is so much meaning that can be taken from this one word and Snyder may have been drawing on all of this, or maybe none of it. I love this idea of a word being worth a thousand words, and am now inspired to incorporate vast yet specific words like this into my poetry. In contrast, Snyder uses the word “gnowledge” in “Spel Against Demons,” which as far as I can tell is a made up word.

-End of review-

~Amanda Pratt~