Turtle Island

Turtle Island won Gary Snyder the Pulitzer back in 1975, and remains, to this observer, his most completely realized work. The title comes from a Native American term for the continent of North America, and Snyder wants to reclaim the organic and holistic environmental harmony that once held sway here. Still, this is poetry, not diatribe. Snyder's key virtue isn't his political or philosophical vision, but his poetic articulation of that vision. Excellent.