18 pages • 36 minutes read
Gary SnyderFour Poems for Robin
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1968A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Further Reading & Resources
Related Poems
“Four Poems for Robin” by Gary Snyder (1968)
This is a poem that also appears in The Back Country (1968). The poem includes similar images, such as the rhododendron, and themes like nature, travel, dreams, wistfulness, and lost connections.
“For A Stone Girl At Sanchi” by Gary Snyder (1968)
Another poem in The Back Country (1968) that deals with a dream of two lovers connecting. Sanchi is a Buddhist complex, one of the oldest stone structures in India, featuring carvings of the life of the Buddha. Snyder visited this famous site with his wife Joanne Kyger. This poem is elliptical, like “Four Poems for Robin,” giving the sensation of fragmentation of the mind. The speaker imagines “all that time / loving; / two flesh persons changing” (Lines 15-17). They cling to each other through “a rubble of years” (Line 20). While “this dream pops” (Line 22) when examined, the speaker believes its content “was real: / and it lasted forever” (Lines 22-23). The two poems explore the theme of the transitory nature of love and life.
“Finding the Space in the Heart” by Gary Snyder (1996)
This is the final section of Mountains and Rivers Without End and is a summation of decades travelling in and out of the Pacific Northwest, with great care and attention paid to the details of the natural landscape. Themes of love and longevity, memory and dream are traced here. Spirituality similar to “Four Poems for Robin” is addressed as the “awareness of emptiness / brings forth a heart of compassion!”. Here, however, Snyder’s speaker is more at peace with the fluidity of life, accepting the “foolish loving spaces / full of heart.”
Further Literary Resources
‘Gary Snyder’s “Four Poems for Robin”’ by Troy Jollimore (2010)
Poet Jollimore analyzes Snyder’s poem, concentrating on how it functions as a love poem, which differentiates it from Snyder’s nature and Beat poetry. He concentrates on the poet as the speaker, his ambivalence, and the sad, naïve aspects of first love.
Towards a New American Poetics: Essays and Interviews by Ekbert Faas (1978)
This book contains essays and interviews with several important American poets, including an extensive one with Snyder that took place in 1973. In it he talks about the craft of poetry, his travels, and his alignment with, and against, Beat philosophies. Published in 1978, the book is available for borrowing at Internet Archive. Here, we can see perhaps some of the philosophies regarding craft that play out in “Four Poems for Robin.”
“Zen Master: Gary Snyder and the Art of Life” by Dana Goodyear (2008)
This article from the New Yorker covers Snyder’s early life with the Beats, particularly mentioning his connections to Kerouac and Rexroth, noting that it was the latter who introduced him to The Tale of Genji, which is alluded to in “Four Poems for Robin.” The article also discusses his history with Zen Buddhism, his craft, and his intention that his poems are “mytho-poetic, magical-lyrical-oral, in a line from [Romantic poet William] Blake.”
Listen to Poem
Gary Snyder did not regularly read “Four Poems for Robin” during readings, so this is a contemporary reading by Dick Warwick for Spokane Public Radio's "Poetry Moment" on June 27, 2018.
