Anthropology and Poetry

Ryan profiles poet Gary Snyder. Along with a community of writers associated with the Beat Generation, Snyder founded a counterculture revolution in literature during the 1950s. He won a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1974 for his book Turtle Island and an American Book Award for his work Axe Handles. His work reflects an immersion in nature and spirituality, revealing underlying interests in anthropology, native cultures, and Buddhism. Although long departed from academic anthropology, he continues to explore culture in a discipline called ethnopoetics.