Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Gary Snyder’s "Bubbs Creek Haircut" is a layered meditation on movement, memory, labor, and the impermanence of both human constructs and natural landscapes. The poem, like much of Snyder’s work, blends personal experience with social commentary and ecological awareness, creating a dense, textured reflection on a life lived between the wilderness and the built environment. It is a poem of transitions—between places, between social worlds, and between past and present—where the act of getting a haircut in a San Francisco barbershop becomes the gateway to a broader meditation on the interconnectedness of things.

The poem begins in an urban setting, a barbershop on Howard Street in San Francisco. The “high ceilinged and the double mirrors” evoke a sense of space and reflection, both literal and figurative. The “calendar a splendid alpine scene” hints at Snyder’s dual existence—rooted in the city but constantly drawn to the mountains. The barber, an “old man in a summer fog gray San Francisco day,” becomes an unexpected link to the wilderness when he mentions that he “built the cabin up at Cedar Grove. In nineteen five.” This moment collapses time—the barber’s past labor now exists as an artifact in a landscape Snyder himself is about to enter. The “old haircut smell” reinforces the sensory experience of memory, as if the very air of the shop carries remnants of time gone by.

From here, the poem shifts into a different kind of space—the secondhand stores of San Francisco. Snyder moves through “Goodwill, St. Vincent de Paul, Salvation Army up the coast,” looking for clothing and supplies for his trip. These places, filled with discarded objects, serve as a reminder of consumption and waste but also of continuity—items once used by others are given new purpose. He describes “all emblems of the past—too close— / heaped up in chilly dust,” emphasizing a detachment from the personal histories that once infused these objects with meaning. Yet, in the act of repurposing, there is a subtle critique of capitalism’s relentless push toward the new, and an implicit appreciation for what endures.

The poem then moves into the journey itself—“A few days later drove with Locke down San Joaquin,” bringing the speaker closer to the mountains. The road is marked by “rubber shreds of cast truck retreads” and stops for “beer and melon on the way.” These details ground the journey in the reality of travel—small pleasures, roadside detritus, the changing landscapes marked by “Sierras marked by cumulus in the east.” Upon arriving in the wilderness, the poem takes on a more expansive tone, shifting into Snyder’s characteristic attentiveness to natural forms. The mountains are described in geological time: “Hard granite canyon walls that leave no scree.” The hike up Bubbs Creek and across Forester Pass is recounted with precision, capturing the weight of walking, the harshness of the terrain, and the sublime beauty of the high-altitude world.

Yet, even in the mountains, human traces persist. The speaker encounters a “trail crew tent in a scraggly grove of creekside lodgepole pine” and is given a message to pass along: “If you see McCool on the other trail crew over there tell him Moorehead says to go to hell.” This moment of humor and camaraderie reminds us that wilderness, despite its grandeur, is also a workplace, a place where laborers, like the barber in the opening, leave their mark.

The poem’s philosophical and mythological inquiries begin to emerge in the later sections. Snyder contemplates a “deva world of sorts” at high altitude, where the “crazy web of wavelets” on an icy lake suggests a cosmic order beyond human understanding. He then shifts into a meditation on objects and their assigned functions, asking whether a chair, once freed from human use, “is always ‘chair’?” This question of identity extends to larger existential concerns, leading to the invocation of “The Mountain God” and figures from Hindu mythology such as “Shiva— / the valley spirit / Anahita, Sarasvati.” These references ground the poem in an Eastern philosophical framework, where objects and identities are fluid, and where creation and destruction are part of the same cycle.

The concluding sections return to Snyder’s personal experiences. A green hat, a symbol of his past travels, reappears, triggering a memory of hitchhiking through Oregon. The final stanza weaves together multiple threads—the purity of the mountains, the detritus of the urban world, and the layered histories of people and places. The memory of a “skid-row cripple’s daughter” emerges, mingling with images of “smoking pine,” a “spittoon glitter,” and “the double mirror” of the barbershop. The poem closes with the barber’s chuckling remark: “Your Bubbs Creek haircut, boy.” This line, with its mix of affection and finality, ties the poem together, reinforcing the idea that even the most mundane acts—like getting a haircut—are part of a larger cycle of movement, memory, and transformation.

"Bubbs Creek Haircut" is ultimately a poem of thresholds—between city and wilderness, between past and present, between the objects we leave behind and the landscapes we enter. Through its layered structure, shifting perspectives, and deep attention to both human and natural worlds, Snyder creates a work that resists linearity, instead embracing the interconnectedness of experience. The poem suggests that all things—barbers, secondhand goods, mountain trails, and even casual exchanges—are part of a continuous flow, a history that extends beyond any single individual. In this way, Snyder’s vision is both deeply personal and profoundly universal, a meditation on impermanence and endurance in a world always in motion.

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