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[APPLAUSE]

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I've asked poet and
artist Eric Magrane

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to introduce tonight's reader.

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Eric has taught several
poetry and ecology

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classes for the Poetry Center.

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And in November
he and Wendy Burk

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are going to lead a
two day workshop called

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Poetry Goes For a Hike.

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So sign up for that.

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He's also the editor of Spiral
Orb, an online experiment

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in permaculture poetics.

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Ask him about that later.

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Please welcome, Eric Magrane.

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[LAUGHTER]

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I'd like to say a brief word
about Gary Snyder and time.

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In his essay Entering
the 50th Millennium,

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he writes about viewing cave
art of the Upper Paleolithic.

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In doing so, he rethinks our
various cultural calendars

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and places us today
within the 50th Millennium

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in a Homo sapiens calendar.

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In this calendar he suggests
and I'll quote from him here,

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"a diachronic view in which
we extend our tolerance back

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in time taking a sympathetic
open and respectful attitude

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toward the peoples
of the deep past."

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Then he wonders what images our
voices will carry to the people

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10,000 years hence.

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This push to extend our
relationship with time

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is not just a poetic exercise.

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It makes sense.

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In a recent book of essays,
Back on the Fire Snyder

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pushes for 1,000 year forest
plan taking into account

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the role of fire ecology.

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In a present when short
sightedness is the norm

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we would do well to listen.

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If we do, we may
just have a chance

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for the Homo sapiens
calendar to press on

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beyond another 10,000 years.

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So here we are in the
postmodern Holocene

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looking out 10,000 years
in either direction

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in our Homo sapiens
calendar, celebrating

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50 years of the Poetry Center
with the reading by Gary Snyder

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tonight.

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As I'm sure you all
know, Gary Snyder

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is a writer, a Buddhist
and a bio- regionalist.

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He was born in San
Francisco in 1930

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and is the author of 18
books of poetry and prose

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including Turtle Island which
won the Pulitzer Prize in 1975.

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Mountains and Rivers
Without End which

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won the Bollingen prize in
1997 and the influential book

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of essays The
Practice of the Wild.

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He has been a logger, a
forest fighter, a lookout,

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a professor, and a
zen student in Japan.

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He lives in the Northern
Sierra of California.

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Tonight, he'll read
his own work as well as

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reminisce about his friendship
with Poetry Center's founder

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Ruth Stefan.

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One of my favorite
poems is Snyder's poem

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"The Canyon Wren" that's
part witness and part

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elegy for a river.

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And it takes place on a trip
down the Stanislaus river

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before it was dammed.

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The poem rests on the song
of the Canyon Wren, which

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Snyder directly quotes.

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And I'll quote Snyder
quoting "The Canyon Wren."

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Titi, ti ti ti ti ti.

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The poem then reaches back
close to 1,000 years to pull

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in quotes from Buddhist
masters Su Tung P'o and Dogen.

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The Canyon wren in being
directly quoted is given

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as much respect as
the two human poets.

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The poem ends with
the following lines,

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these songs that are here
and gone, here and gone

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to purify our ears.

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Many songs are in conversation
within each other.

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Within and across time through
the window of Snyder's work.

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Ladies and gentlemen,
here tonight

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to help clarify our ears
please welcome Gary Snyder.

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[APPLAUSE]

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