Gratitude for Gary Snyder

This is one of the original "Beat" poets, who lives in the northwest , and has lived in Japan and other places. He is very deserving and not a part of the Po-Biz.

His birthday is May 8, 1945 ( I believe).

In 1982, I was blessed in attending a reading of anthropologist/poets [poet/anthropologists?] at The New School for Social Research. Gary Snyder, Jerome Rothenberg and 3 or 4 others read. I sat near the front of the auditorium, next to Fred Martin, then an editor at New Directions. Fred was editor for Gary, and Denise Levertov and many brilliant poets.

He shared that he, himself was a "C- poet," who had "to deal in A+ to survive."

I was barely 18 years old at the time and overjoyed to receive written notes throughout the reading from Fred. He graded all the poets that evening. I wrote about Fred Martin on foetrydotcom, and later heard from his daughter-in-law, Susan.

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