Gary Snyder The man has been a cultural/ethical/intellectual/ and if I may add spiritual guide for many of us in the Pacific Northwest. He is influential not only in his commitment to environmentalism, but also in his help transmitting Zen Buddhism to the Western United States(he traveled to and from Japan, studied under Oda Sesso Roshi, and was one of the more serious American Students of Zen at a time when the philosophy was exploding in the American academic scene.) Through poetry,prose, and activism, Snyder has introduced and expanded on ideas such as left-wing American values (his grandparents were IWW), Kropotkin-esque Anarchism, Buddhism, Environmentalism, among other ideas. Depsite being an intellectual, Gary had experience with the working class. He worked as a logger, in a shipyard, for the Forest Service as a lookout and trail builder. He was a truly an outdoorsman and embodies American Pragmatism. Some claim Snyder helped create and embodies Pacific Rim culture (see Timothy Gray's Gary Snyder and the Pacific Rim). Furthermore, Snyder was highly influential on Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac (Snyder is Japhy Ryder in the Dharma Bums). He was adopted into the west coasts beat movement and the San Fransisco Renaissance. Those of us who are interested in the history of counter-culture in the U.S., and even those who consider themselves counter-cultural, owe at least some recognition to Gary Snyder. Edit: Forgot to mention he won the Pullitzer Prize for his poetry book Turtle Island. Seemed like an important bit of information.