This Poem Is for Bear

Introduction

Beat Poetry in General

1. Gary Snyder as a beat poet and application to "This poem is for bear"

The Bear in myths and tales

3.1 The Kamui Cult in Japan

2 Native Americans, the Bear and The Indian Bear Woman

Conclusion

Introduction

Gary Snyder, a member of the so-called Beat Generation, wrote a poem called "This poem is for Bear." As we'll see later on this poem is characteristic for the Beat Generation and reflects important facts and experiences of the life of Gary Snyder. There's a relation to Indian and Japanese mythology and to North American Wildlife. All these aspects had a great influence on Snyder's work.

2. Beat Poetry in general

The Beat Poetry appeared first in the beginning of 1950s. The Beat Generation was represented by poets, writers, singers and songwriters. The writers produced poetry, philosophy, paintings, films, photography, and narratives that expressed the feelings of a group of people who didn't agree with the mainstream thinking. Some main aspects of living as a member of the Beat Generation were e.g. the anti-bourgeois lifestyles, primitivism, criminality (drugs, anarchistic politics), religious experimentation (Zen Buddhism), travel, voluntary poverty, and the sincere expression of inner feelings.

Beat Poets didn't consider themselves as `beat', they wanted to be seen as individuals and not as something in the masses, because they wanted to start some kind of a rebellion against the mass consumer culture of the 1950s.

This rebellion is reflected for example in the structure of the poems, they wrote their poems without thinking about its structure, they didn't follow any conventions and didn't use any stylistic features which were characteristic for `classical' poetry.

2.1. Gary Snyder as a beat poet and application to "This poem is for bear"

Gary Snyder was born in 1930 in San Francisco, California but grew up in the Pacific Northwest. He had many experiences in the natural and wild worlds there, which influenced his work and thought.

For most of the 1960s he lived in Japan and studied formally in a Zen monastery, and the influence of Zen Buddhism continues as a powerful implicit and explicit influence in his thought.

Then he went back to the United States.

If we look at "This poem is for bear" we can see that some of these experiences are reflected in it.

In the beginning of the poem Snyder gives a description of a bear and his life.