Editing Gary Snyder (section)

===The Beats===
Back in San Francisco, Snyder lived with Whalen, who shared his growing interest in [[Zen Buddhism|Zen]]. Snyder's reading of the writings of [[D. T. Suzuki]] had in fact been a factor in his decision not to continue as a graduate student in anthropology, and in 1953 he enrolled at the [[University of California, Berkeley]], to study Asian culture and languages. He studied [[ink and wash painting]] under [[Chiura Obata]] and [[Tang dynasty]] poetry under Ch'en Shih-hsiang.<ref>Suiter (2002) pp. 82–83</ref>  Snyder continued to spend summers working in the forests, including one summer as a trail-builder in [[Yosemite]]. He spent some months in 1955 and 1956 living in a cabin (which he dubbed "Marin-an") outside [[Mill Valley, California]] with [[Jack Kerouac]]. It was also at this time that Snyder was an occasional student at the [[American Academy of Asian Studies]], where [[Saburo Hasegawa]] and [[Alan Watts]], among others, were teaching. Hasegawa introduced Snyder to the treatment of [[landscape painting]] as a meditative practice. This inspired Snyder to attempt something equivalent in poetry, and with Hasegawa's encouragement, he began work on ''[[Mountains and Rivers Without End]]'', which would be completed and published 40 years later.<ref>Suiter (2002) pp. 188–189</ref>  During these years, Snyder was writing and collecting his own work, as well as embarking on the translation of the "Cold Mountain" poems by the 8th-century Chinese recluse [[Hanshan (poet)|Han Shan]]; this work appeared in [[chapbook]] form in 1959, under the title ''Riprap & Cold Mountain Poems''.

Snyder met [[Allen Ginsberg]] when the latter sought Snyder out on the recommendation of [[Kenneth Rexroth]].<ref>Fields, Rick (1981) ''How the Swans Came to the Lake'', p. 212. Boulder, CO: Shamballa.</ref> Then, through Ginsberg, Snyder and Kerouac came to know each other. This period provided the materials for Kerouac's novel ''[[The Dharma Bums]]'', and Snyder was the inspiration for the novel's main character, Japhy Ryder, in the same way [[Neal Cassady]] had inspired Dean Moriarty in ''[[On the Road]]''. As the large majority of people in the Beat movement had urban backgrounds, writers like Ginsberg and Kerouac found Snyder, with his backcountry and manual-labor experience and interest in things rural, a refreshing and almost exotic individual. [[Lawrence Ferlinghetti]] later referred to Snyder as 'the Thoreau of the Beat Generation'.

Snyder read his poem "A Berry Feast" at the [[Six Gallery reading|poetry reading at the Six Gallery]] in San Francisco (October 7, 1955) that heard the first reading of Ginsberg's poem "Howl" and marked the emergence into mainstream publicity of the Beats. This also marked Snyder's first involvement with the Beats, although he was not a member of the original New York circle, having entered the scene through his association with Whalen and Welch. As recounted in Kerouac's ''Dharma Bums'', even at age 25 Snyder felt he could have a role in the fateful future meeting of West and East. Snyder's first book, ''Riprap'', which drew on his experiences as a forest lookout and on the trail crew in Yosemite, was published in 1959.