Maggie Spencer-Pick - reflection on Gary Snider Readings

 The cyclical nature of having to participate the death of anything to continue living that all humans participate in is interesting to examine. In the poem "The Dead on the Side of the Road", it is interesting how Snyder moves to seem to acknowledge the life and the way that this life can be used and changed and transformed. The fossil fuels that he mentions fueling the log truck is especially interesting because it is old and dead matter fueling the continued death of trees in the form of lumber. It is in this way that we see another representation of mushrooms, such as with the truck that also uses and takes dead things and life. "Coyote Valley Spring" gave me the feeling overall of spring, and change. Except that the spring is melancholy, representing a shifting and changing that may not necessarily be good. The people going out in the boats seem literal, representing the immense struggles and changes that Native Americans have faced as they were forced to abandoned these areas that were so alive to them. "Control Burn" seems to ask for an understanding that is more tied to the land. "Fire is an old story" also represents the way that the actions of Native Americans through fire shaped the way the forest developed, the way that the berries open up and the way that the land responds. These actions shaped the land, but not in the way that logging or other modern actions shape the land. Fire created a relationship between humans and the land, one that is still there to be told if you can look.