What a great ending to National Poetry Month. Gary Snyder has been awarded the 2008 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for Lifetime Achievement.
“Gary Snyder is in essence a contemporary devotional poet, though he is not devoted to any one god or way of being so much as to Being itself. His poetry is a testament to the sacredness of the natural world and our relation to it, and a prophecy of what we stand to lose if we forget that relation.” says Christian Wiman, editor of Poetry magazine and chair of the selection committee.
The $100,000 award is one of the most lucrative out there and no one is more deserving. Snyder is a true American hero and has inspired many of us to live a more compassionate life, one in tune to the beauty around and within us.
Gary Snyder at Wikipedia
Snyder’s November 2007 article at the Shambhala Sun, Writer’s and the War Against Nature
One hour interview with Snyder at NCTV11, the public access station for Nevada City, in 2007.
Photo by Giuseppe Moretti, September 2005. It was taken in the Dolomites while Snyder was in Italy for readings in Rome and Florence.