Eunish Shrestha

Tim Maxwell

English 110 AJ

February 12, 2020

Essay 1.2.2

Feeling of Appreciation

Ever since I can remember my favorite genre in any type of art or literature has

always been nature. Although I am scared of almost every insect and animal in the

world, looking at nature, and its beauty is always fascinating to me. From the food chain

process in the forest to how people can survive in forest without modern day

technologies are some intriguing topics. Because of my interest in nature, when I

learned about Gary Snyder, I chose him as one of the poets to write about.

Gary Snyder is a poet well known for his work involving nature. According to the

poetry foundation, Snyder uses his insight from Zen Buddhism and mixes it with his

observation of nature to create wonderful poems. They also mention that Kenneth

Rexroth observed snyder’s work proposes “a new ethic, a new esthetic, [and] a new life

style.” Because of this I was really pulled into his work. I chose his work Getting in the

woods because the setting of the poem was the forest.

The poem Getting in the woods was a very confusing poem, as it depicts some

unusual images throughout the poem. The poem also used a handful of words that were

new to me, as a result understanding the poem was very difficult. The poem seems to

be talking about the experience of a lumberjack who is working in the woods. The poet

describes the lumberjack working indirectly by describing what is in the surrounding and
what is happening to all the tools in the area. In the third stanza the author never

explicitly mentions the lumberjack working, however we see the image of him cutting the

log.

“And the sweat drips down.

Smell of crushed ants.

The lean and heave on the peavey

that breaks free the last of a bucked

three-foot round,

it lies flat on smashed oaklings—”

The line “sweat drips down” gives us a realization that someone is working, and is

getting tired. Then by giving details like the ants getting crushed, the log getting broken,

and falling flat on the ground, we get the image of a lumberjack who just finished cutting

a log. This made me feel uneasy because I know how hard it is to cut wood. When I did

a graduation project in high school, I had to cut hundreds of pieces of wood with a saw.

Though the wood was much smaller than the one the lumberjack was cutting, it was still

very difficult and very tiring. Snyder creates this uneasy feeling through his work choices

and phrases. Snyder quotes the line “a living glove of ants upon my hand”, which is a

very disturbing image for me. Since I am scared of almost every animal and bugs, I try

to keep my distance from them. As a result his use of the phrase “a living glove of ants

upon my hand” makes me feel extremely uncomfortable, and very uneasy.

Then Snyder depicts how much work they have done to increase our

appreciation towards them for all their hard work.

“All to gather the dead and the down.

 the young men throw splits on the piles

bodies hardening, learning the pace

and the smell of tools from this delve

in the winter

death-topple of elderly oak.

Four cords.”

In these lines Snyder expresses how hard these lumberjack are working to create wood

that many people can use. Even though it is difficult labor in the cold winter, which is

expressed by “bodies hardening,” and “Four cords” they keep working. This also makes

me feel appreciation towards the lumberjack because they are working hard to create

logs that we can use.

By using lumberjack as an example I believe Snyder is trying to show us readers

how hard people are working, so we can get what we want. This makes me feel thankful

towards everyone who works. Even though I always appreciated my friends and family

for all the work they do to take care of me, this poem made me realize I should be

thankful for others who I do not know but work hard so people like me can get what we

need. They basically do the work for us and make our life easier.

Work Cited

“Gary Snyder.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry Foundation,

www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/gary-snyder.
Snyder, Gary. “Getting in the Wood by Gary Snyder.” Poetry Foundation, Poetry

Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57151/getting-in-the-wood.