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Snyder's poem "How Poetry Comes to Me" (1992) dramatizes poetic inspiration as a visitation of something wild. Poetic creation is an encounter with wildness in a natural environment. Such scenes must be discovered on foot; the physical connection with nature precedes inspiration. I read the poem as a myth of origins, distinguishing three levels on which walking is significant. First, as an enabling anecdote; second, as an allegory of poetic inspiration; and third, as a class="EmphasisTypeItalic ">physical code that communicates between the natural world and poetic shaping. These three levels structure my readings. I limit myself to poems written between the mid-1950s and the end of the century and evoking rambles in northern California.

DOI: 10.1057/978-1-137-60364-7_4

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