The Back Country is one of Gary Snyder's most serious engagements with Eastern culture and thought. Much of the book works to achieve a perspective by means of contrast, as in "Hitch Haiku," a series of haiku (a Japanese form of imagistic, syllabic verse) mostly set in the American West. Perhaps the strongest poem is "Oil," in which Snyder envisions a tanker as a needle bringing our addicted nation "long injections of pure oil."
Back Country FROM THE PUBLISHER
'A reaffirmation of a back country of the spirit', this collection is made up of four sections: 'Far West', 'Far East', 'Kali', and 'Back'. The book concludes with a group of translations of the Japanese poet Miyazawa Kenji, with whose work Synder feels a close affinity.
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