Mountains and Rivers Without End

Begun in Berkeley on April 8, 1956, Gary Snyder's Mountains and Rivers Without End is an epic of geology, prehistory, and mythology. The poems travel beyond Western traditions to encompass Asian art and drama, Native American performance and storytelling, and the practice of Zen Buddhism. It is a moving celebration of earth and sky, rock and water, nature and humanity from one of America's finest poets.

When the first edition of this landmark work was published in 1996, Gary Snyder was honored with the Bollingen Poetry Prize, the Robert Kirsch Lifetime Achievement Award from the The Los Angeles Times, the Orion Society's John Hay Award, and many other awards. In this new edition, we celebrate again the brilliant of one of our most important poets.

In simple, striking verse, legendary poet Gary Snyder weaves an epic discourse on the topics of geology, prehistory, and mythology. First published in 1996, this landmark work encompasses Asian artistic traditions, as well as Native American storytelling and Zen Buddhist philosophy, and celebrates the disparate elements of the Earth — sky, rock, water — while exploring the human connection to nature with stunning wisdom. Winner of the Bollingen Poetry Prize, the Robert Kirsch Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Orion Society's John Hay Award, among others, Gary Snyder finds his quiet brilliance celebrated in this new edition of one of his most treasured works.

Gary Snyder won the Pulitzer Prize in 1975, was a finalist for The National Book Award in 1992 and the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2006. He won the Bollingen Prize in poetry, the Kirsch Lifetime Achievement Award, the John Hay Award, and most recently the Wallace Stevens Prize in 2012. He has lived in his homestead in the Sierra foothills of the Sierra Nevada since 1970.