What is the poem 'In that year 1914' about by Gary snyder?

Answer 1

As an English teacher who has been given the task of teaching this poem by the nice people at AQA, I will write the most detailed response I can (and try to avoid giving the facetious answer: "Not a lot"!)

1 - It seems to be a monologue. In other words, it is meant to be the speech of a character (presumably an old man with the tendency to ramble). The clues are the speech marks at the beginning and end and the fact that it refers to a time (1914) when Snyder himself was not yet born.

2 - The "narrator" is recounting a memory from his childhood of a time when he (and unnamed companion/s) found a huge number of blackberries growing wild. The poem is conversational in tone and doesn't seem to rely on any particular symbolism or metaphorical content; it's just about what it seems to be about! Snyder is often described as a "Beat poet", part of the generation who were young in the 1960s and who broke many of the conventions of traditional poetry: Note that this has no recognisable rhyme scheme, stanza forms etc. Also it is written in the vernacular of a "working-class" American ("you know.." "skidroad" etc. Some of the sentences are not even being grammatically "correct" (e.g. "wherever you'd go.....all overgrown") and the occasional repetition seems accidental and random in the same way that real people repeat themselves in speech e.g. "wild blackberries" in lines 3 and 4(rather than the way that poets usually use repetition in very structured and deliberate ways).

3 - Snyder is a poet whose love of, and respect for, nature is famous. The narrator's tone here seems to be one of awe that nature could provide 3 days' worth of fruit-picking for so many people; notice that one of the few times he uses traditionally lyrical (typically poetic) language is "the full ripe of berrytime", "ripe" being used as a noun, "berrytime" being a lovely name for the autumn (or whatever season blackberries come out in the USA!)

4 - It's a poem about nostalgia, I think. This narrator (who must be at least in his 50s by the time the poem was written - 1960) says "no berries like that now" thinking that the olden days were clearly more fruitful. Perhaps what Snyder might be suggesting is that, although the narrator sees the past as a more natural, golden age, we as modern, more urban people notice how tough his life must have been. After all, food must have been so scarce that the abundance of blackberries would have been such big news that "mother sent letters" and relatives come flocking from as far as Seattle to pick and can them. From what I understand of Snyder's view of the natural world, he might sympathise with the old man's sense that natural lifestyles were better, but it is not an idealised "Romantic" view of nature being the provider that Wordsworth (and other 19th century poets) might have thought.

5 - Is the date significant? Maybe... The obvious association of 1914 is World War 1 so maybe Snyder is showing how - for ordinary people - it is their private, personal history that is important, not global events....Maybe! My colleague suggested that the innocence and sense of family that the story captures was later destroyed by the War. The way that he begins "in THAT year...." suggests that this is half of a 2-way conversation in which someone ELSE has mentioned 1914 so the question I wonder is whether the other person was referring to the War.

6 - Don't let having to study this poem put you off Gary Snyder (or poetry in general!) A lot of his stuff is much more accessible and beautiful (although I stopped disliking this one as soon as I tried to make some sense of it). I guess it works a little like a short story that just captures an apparently tiny moment in a character's life. at first you might think "So what?"

7 - Oh, and another thing.... Many traditional nature poems (such as Wordsworth's "Daffodils") build to a glorious, epiphany moment where the poet sees (and describes the joy of seeing) a natural beauty. This old man who accepts the beauty of nature cos he lives with it every day doesn't use this "artificial" poetic device. We probably know he's going to find blackberries after line 5 so when he does describe them beautifully "full ripe" etc he just carries on in his chatty way: "and with only two pails.."

Good luck

Thank you so much! Annie.

I'm not a big poetry fan, however i did find this poem really clever, I believe that this poem is about world war 1 someones transition from basic training to the trench's of world war 1, it translates to me as someones was of escaping from his current situation, and relating it into something other than war, I believe that the blackberries are actually the Germans and his family members are his comrades in arms, it's done really well I'm currently trying to translate it into what i think it means, anyone wishing to know my findings is welcome i would actually like to ask Mr snyder his opinion of what i think if anyones knows how i can conact him i would be greatfull many thanks.