Riprap by Gary Snyder
"Riprap" is a celebrated poem by Gary Snyder, featured in his first collection of poetry. The poem is notable for its structured, craftsmanlike quality, utilizing short, monosyllabic words that echo the physical labor of trail work in the Sierra Nevada. Snyder invites readers to perceive words as tangible objects, urging a deeper engagement with nature and language. This connection is enhanced by his exploration of Zen principles, where unexpected experiences can lead to enlightenment.
Throughout "Riprap," Snyder juxtaposes concrete images from the natural world with cosmic themes, such as the Milky Way and straying planets, suggesting that poetry can transcend the ordinary. He emphasizes the fluidity of thought and creativity, likening the poet's craft to the natural processes that shape the earth. The poem ultimately reflects a balance between solid, physical realities and the dynamic possibilities of poetic expression, indicating Snyder's vision of a broader, more imaginative landscape. This interplay of simplicity and complexity invites readers to explore not just the poem's surface, but also the deeper meanings embedded within.
Riprap by Gary Snyder
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1959 (collected in Riprap, 1959)
Type of work: Poem
The Work
“Riprap,” the title poem in Snyder’s first collection of verse, is an accomplished example of the craftsmanlike yet transcendent nature of his early poetry. He begins with short, percussive words, mostly monosyllabic, which follow the rhythm of the trail work that he had done in the Sierra Nevada:
Lay down these words
Snyder’s goal is not merely to reproduce the experience of trail work but also to jolt the reader’s mind into higher levels of consciousness through close attention to natural facts and to words experienced as palpable objects. In the practice of Zen religion, masters sometimes deliver unexpected physical blows to surprise their students into satori (enlightenment). Snyder stated in a 1960 interview that he wrote the Riprap poems under the influence of “the five-and-seven-character-line Chinese poems I’d been reading at the time, which work like sharp blows to the mind.” From this foundation of hard physical facts and sharp, simple words, Snyder then launches the poem into cosmic realms:
Cobble of milky way,
In his playful references to the “milky way,” “planets,” “worlds,” and the “game of Go,” Snyder implies that the poet need not be limited to mundane physical facts for his or her choice of words, images, and concepts. Rather, through the placement of words, the poetic craftsman can embed seemingly ungraspable materials in the lines of a poem, just as nature can form into solid rock materials which once seemed too hot and fluid to control:
Granite: ingrained
Though “Riprap” is known as one of Snyder’s carefully composed, craftsmanlike poems, in these concluding lines one can see Snyder prophesying other possibilities for his verse, affirming the heated and volatile flow of poetic imagination.
Bibliography
Almon, Bert. Gary Snyder. Boise, Idaho: Boise State University Press, 1979.
Altieri, Charles. Enlarging the Temple: New Directions in American Poetry During the 1960’s. Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press, 1979.
Dean, Tim. Gary Snyder and the American Unconscious. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991.
Halper, Jon. Gary Snyder: Dimensions of a Life. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1991.
Molesworth, Charles. Gary Snyder’s Vision: Poetry and the Real Work. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1983.
Steubing, Bob. Gary Snyder. Boston: Twayne, 1976.
Suiter, John. Poets on the Peaks. New York: Counterpoint, 2002.