mountain uplife. subduction. Erosion and the
planetary water cycle”. We see in the modernist
cantos of Pound a need to discharge this energy
and using the modus of poetry to suit this end.
Both Pound and Snyder share this strategy and
root their pathos in eastern mysticism and epic
landscapes. In addition, Pound sought to "tell the
tale of the tribe". Other comparisons can be made
to Whitman and his shamanic "multitudes" and
William Carlos Williams, the imagist. Imagism
"tried to depict vigorous images or word pictures"
and bears a resemblance to, according to Addison,
"the primitive form of Native American
expression". Thus Williams’s body of work also
embodies some shamanic elements. The key
spectre of Snyder’s shamanism lies in the dynamic
unfolding of landscapes, he is condiment to his
experience and draws upon this as part of the
shamanic state and event.
The journeying state is pertinent to the
shamanic as Snyder travels like Orpheus, the
original shaman. Mountains and Rivers without
end signifies that there is no end to the journey
but that the destination is, in fact, the journey.
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