Since reading Jack Kerouac’s On the Road as a kid, I've always loved the beat poets and their literature. One of my favorites has always been Gary Snyder. In 1975, at the moment he won the Pulitzer Prize for his great book of poems, Turtle Island, I was driving Snyder, Michael McClure and Allen Ginsberg around Gainesville, Florida during a visit there. This led to a lifetime of great relationships and wonderful poetry.
Gary Snyder in 1975 in Gainesville, Florida. Photo by Frank Beacham
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It was a real surprise this morning to wake up to Gary's new poem, Why I Take Good Care of My Macintosh in the New York Times. It seems a Times reporter found Snyder, who lives in the Sierra foothills in Northern California, and asked him to reflect on the digital age. Since Snyder normally writes about nature, this was quite a stretch.
Like myself, Snyder is an avid user of Apple's Macintosh laptop. Snyder, now 79, who doesn’t have a mobile phone and considers texting “abhorrent,” said he loved his Mac. “I like the storage space it has,” he told the Times, “and I like the ability to have back files accessible to me wherever I go.” Here is the poem:
