Skip to Content

Beat poet digs Macs

by Steven Sande Jan 23rd 2010 at 6:00PM

New York Times columnist John Markoff recently interviewed Beat-era poet Gary Snyder, who usually writes about the American wilderness. Markoff found that the 79 year-old Snyder, who confesses to writing his poetry on "whatever was at hand," is an avid and devoted Mac user.

According to Markoff, Snyder wasn't aware of the upcoming announcement of an Apple book replacement, as he lives in the California back country and apparently doesn't have the interruption of broadband noise to bother him. Snyder rarely uses a mobile phone and is quoted by Markoff as considering texting "abhorrent." But he waxes poetic when he uses his Mac.

Snyder noted about his Mac, "I like the storage space it has," he said, "and I like the ability to have back files accessible to me wherever I go." Those weren't the only words he had to say about the Mac. In a short, previously unpublished poem titled "Why I Take Good Care of My Macintosh," the "poet laureate of Deep Ecology" describes why he says that personal computers feel like sentient beings.

Fans of poetry and Macs can read the poem by visiting the title link in the previous paragraph. It's crazy, daddy-o!


View Tags

Related Stories

Categories

Cult of Mac Apple

New York Times columnist John Markoff recently interviewed Beat-era poet Gary Snyder, who usually writes about the American wilderness....
 

Add a Comment

Sign in »
*0 / 3000 Character Maximum

7 Comments

Filter by:
Noah Ramon

Dig. {fingersnaps}

January 24 2010 at 5:37 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
HandyMac

Contrary to the NYTimes article, Gary doesn’t live “without electricity” at Kitkitdizze, his hand-built house in the mountains outside Nevada City, California. He is off the grid, but has had his own solar power system for decades. Twenty-some years ago I read that he had a Mac Plus, which, he said, was convenient because its own internal wiring was the same 12-volt DC as his solar system.

Gary Snyder has dedicated his life to figuring out, and exemplifying, how human beings could live on this planet in a sane, sustainable, even joyous fashion. Which, unfortunately, makes him a very rare bird. See his numerous books of poetry (e.g. "Turtle Island", which won a Pulitzer) and essays (e.g. “Earth House Hold”) for a lot of entertaining reflections and interesting and fruitful thoughts and ideas. See Wikipedia for more about him:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Snyder

Btw, that is NOT Gary Snyder in the photo; I have no idea who it is. A Google Image search finds photos of him spanning the last 50 years:
http://images.google.com/images?&q=Gary+Snyder

January 23 2010 at 8:03 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to HandyMac's comment
Steven Sande

That's just a photo of a couple of Beats in Venice Beach, CA in 1959. I thought it was much more fun than a picture of Gary.

Wasn't the poem great?

Steve

January 23 2010 at 8:29 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
HandyMac

Well, a trifle misleading for anyone who doesn't know who Gary is (which I'd guess would be the majority of readers here). For the record, here's a good, fairly recent photo:
http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/gary_snyder/photo

A recent interview exemplifies Snyder's thought:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/may/30/culture.features

January 24 2010 at 6:40 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Matthew

"Word of an Apple book replacement had not yet reached him in the California backcountry where he lives without electricity."

Huh? How does he power it?

January 23 2010 at 7:23 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to Matthew's comment
jamy015

Yeah, i asked myself the same question!

January 23 2010 at 7:33 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
jim

maybe he has a solar-powered charger?

January 24 2010 at 10:05 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Buy an ad here

Hot Apps on TUAW

Tweets

© 2012 AOL Inc. All Rights Reserved.