A Place in Space: Ethics, Aesthetics, and Watersheds: New and Selected Prose

Washington, D.C: Counterpoint, 1995. First printing. 263 pages; 21 cm. Fine(-) with very slight cocking to binding, in a fine, faintly spine-sunned jacket in archival mylar. Hardcover. ISBN: 1887178023; 9781887178020

"[T]wenty-nine essays spanning nearly forty years of Snyder's career, with thirteen essays written since the publication of The Practice of the Wild in 1990. Displaying his playful and subtle intellect, these pieces explore our place on earth. Snyder argues that nature is not something apart from us, but intrinsic: our societies and civilizations are "natural constructs." Whether through common language or shared geographical watershed, we are united in community. We must go beyond racial, ethnic, and religious identities to find a shared concern for the same ground that benefits humans and nonhumans alike. Snyder argues that this thinking will not make people provincial, but will lead to a new kind of planetary and ecological cosmopolitanism. Twenty-five years ago, at the first Earth Day, Gary Snyder's speech in Colorado and his manifesto "Four Changes," included here with a new postscript, helped set the tone for our developing attitudes toward the environment. In A Place in Space, he continues his analysis, refining our role on this planet and calling for an ethic that gives moral standing to all beings."—Publisher. // Contents: North Beach --; "Notes on the Beat Generation" and "The New Wind" --; A Virus Runs Through It --; Smokey the Bear Sutra --; Four Changes, with a Postscript --; The Yogin and the Philosopher --; "Energy Is Eternal Delight" --; Earth Day and the War Against the Imagination --; Nets of Beads, Webs of Cells --; A Village Council of All Beings --; Goddess of Mountains and Rivers --; What Poetry Did in China --; Amazing Grace --; The Old Masters and the Old Women --; A Single Breath --; Energy from the Moon --; Walked into Existence --; The Politics of Ethnopoetics --; The Incredible Survival of Coyote --; Unnatural Writing --; Language Goes Two Ways --; Reinhabitation --; The Porous World --; The Forest in the Library --; Exhortations for Baby Tigers --; Walt Whitman's Old "New World" --; Coming into the Watershed --; The Rediscovery of Turtle Island --; Kitkitdizze: A Node in the Net. ¶ Ecology -- Religious aspects -- Buddhism. Letterkunde. Amerikaans. Essays.Snyder, Gary, 1930-