Blog Post #2: Influence

Choose a person to write about who has influenced you. This can be someone famous, a friend, a family member, whoever you respect and have learned from. In a new post, in 150 or more words, tell everyone about the person you chose and why you chose them. This is worth 20 points and is due next Wednesday.

My person would probably be Gary Snyder. He is a Pulitzer Prize winning poet, but I think I respect him more for the way he lives his life. I know a little of how he lives because he writes a lot of essays and those are my favorites. He is a Zen Buddhist and lives a life of simplicity and contemplation. He tries to live in balance with his community and the land. I strive for a similar kind of life. Snyder works at building communities. He is a strong believer in sustainability, not taking any more energy than you give. I know I do not always live up to this, but I hope to, and strive to. Often who we are is who we have been taught to be. We learn from our family, friends, and a myriad of others. Snyder is someone I would like to emulate both in his writing and his life. Here is a poem by him that I particularly enjoy.

Riprap

Lay down these words
Before your mind like rocks.
placed solid, by hands
In choice of place, set
Before the body of the mind
in space and time:
Solidity of bark, leaf, or wall
riprap of things:
Cobble of milky way.
straying planets,
These poems, people,
lost ponies with
Dragging saddles --
and rocky sure-foot trails.
The worlds like an endless
four-dimensional
Game of Go.
ants and pebbles
In the thin loam, each rock a word
a creek-washed stone
Granite: ingrained
with torment of fire and weight
Crystal and sediment linked hot
all change, in thoughts,
As well as things.