From Publishers Weekly
A magnificent achievement, this epic poem belies the common take that Snyder's poetic career is notable mainly in the past tense and is refracted by the works of others. Without doubt, Snyder's exploration of nature, Zen Buddhism and his travels through unexplored corners of American society influenced the Beat writers of the 1950s and early 1960s, and some of his early works (Riprap and Cold Mountain Poems, 1965, and Turtle Island, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1975) are masterpieces. This new, vital work sums up stylistic and thematic concerns by uniting 39 poems written between 1956 and 1996 (many published here for the first time) into a seamless whole that, like a modern Leaves of Grass, combines fascination with the varied particulars of the way people live with awe at the majesty of nature. Each of four sections is organized around a familiar Snyder focus: the demands made on people by nature and time ("The road that's followed goes forever;/ in half a minute crossed and left behind"); observation of the terrain he occupies ("Slash of calligraphy of freeways of cars") and various American landscapes ("trucks on the freeways,/ Kenworth, Peterbilt, Mack,/ rumble diesel depths,/ like boulders bumping in an outwash glacial river"); and subtle tributes to those who have survived the last 40 years ("At the end of the ice age/ we are the bears, we are the ravens,/ We are the salmon/ in the gravel/ At the end of an ice age"). A concluding essay, "The Making of Mountain and Rivers Without End," serves as an intellectual mini-autobiography and a gloss on some of the Eastern influences on the poem. This is a major work by a venerable master of post-WWII American poetry. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
No nature is "a magnificent selection of the best of Snyder's career" (LJ 9/1/92), still going strong with the recent Mountains and Rivers Without End.Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Mountains and Rivers is an epic of geology, prehistory, and planetary mythologies. It is a poem about land and its processes, a book about wisdom, compassion, and myth, and a narrative work that is not quite like anything else.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Snyder was awarded the Bolligen Poetry Prize when this epic poem, 40 years in the making, was published last year. (Oct.)

Library Journal