Gary Snyder Themes

For this assignment, I read "The Dead by the Side of the Road", "Front Lines", and "By Frazier Creek Falls".  All three shared a very strong environmental sustainability theme, as is common with Snyder's poetry found in "Turtle Island".

The main theme presented in "The Dead by the Side of the Road" is shown through several examples and parallel structure of the stanzas within the poem.  Each stanza tells the story of a different type of road kill found at the side of a highway that was built.  It is made clear through the accusatory tone of the poem that the roads are anthropogenic and each death resulting from cars is on the shoulders of the humans.  Although Snyder introduces that humans use the bodies as food or tools, this is contradicted with a stanza dedicated to how humans then beg these animals for forgiveness and for them to "bless us" for causing their deaths.  It is in this hypocritical plea for forgiveness that Snyder makes evident his theme of humans causing more death than they can make use of.

In the poem "Front Lines", Snyder exposes human expansion as a "cancer[ous]" expansion into nature.  He even goes to a further extent to compare the expansion to rape.  The reality company in the poem tells the forest to "spread your legs" making the comparison to rape severely evident.  Snyder's theme of  environmental sustainability is carried into "Front Lines" by showing how many people do not see the negative effects of destroying forests for expansion.  He personifies the forest as a human and portraying the expansion as rape so that humans can connect more with that comparison rather than just a forest being torn down for some condos.  Snyder ends his poem with a challenge for the audience: where should the line be drawn for how much nature can be destroyed.  This leaves the reader thinking more about the repercussions of their actions on nature and creates a very effective message.

Lastly, "By Frazier Creek Falls" brings a more peaceful look to environmental sustainability by describing the breathtaking beauty of nature to a viewer.  Like in "Front Lines", Snyder calls his reader to "listen" and establishes a connection with the audience, causing the reader to feel closer to the author and take away a stronger message from the poem.  Snyder then states how humans are a part of nature themselves and should take the responsibility that comes in hand with that.  He also states that "we can live without clothing or tools", suggesting that he believes a viable solution to environmental sustainability would be to live as a part of nature with no modern technology, even as simple as clothing or tools.

In each of these three poems, Snyder keeps his universal message of environmental sustainability.  Whether is it how humans are causing nature's death, causing irreparable damage to nature, or introducing a solution to how humans can live with nature, Snyder challenges his audience with each poem.  A connection between the reader and the author is established through a question or a radical solution which causes the reader to debate how they feel about the suggested solution or answer and take a stance on environmental sustainability, themselves.