O Mother Gaia: The World of Gary Snyder on Feb. 8 at the Nevada Theatre

The Nevada Theatre will host a special screening of O Mother Gaia: The World of Gary Snyder on Sunday, February 8 at 2:00pm, offering audiences a rare and intimate portrait of Pulitzer Prize–winning poet, essayist, and environmental activist Gary Snyder. This screening coincides with celebrations of Snyder’s 95th birthday and honors a life devoted to poetry, ecological awareness, and spiritual inquiry.

O Mother Gaia is the first feature-length film to document Snyder’s life and work. Filmmaker Colin Still skillfully assembled and remastered the documentary from his original 16mm footage shot in the 1990s for British television, creating a visually rich and deeply personal self-portrait of one of America’s most influential literary voices. Famously private and elusive, Snyder reveals himself here through his poems, reflections, and lived connection to the natural world.

Filmed on location at Snyder’s Kitkitdizzie / Ring of Bone Zendo home in the Sierra Nevada—as well as other landscapes central to his life and writing—the film captures the rhythms of a life rooted in place, practice, and ecological responsibility. Archival footage from the 1950s and 1960s provides historical context, while contemporary readings and commentary by Peter Coyote, Jane Hirshfield, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Shoemaker, and Michael McClure illuminate Snyder’s enduring influence on poetry, counterculture, and environmental thought. The film also features a moving and rare interview with Snyder’s late wife, Carole Koda.

Born in 1930, Gary Snyder emerged as a key figure of the Beat Generation while forging a path uniquely his own—one that bridged Zen Buddhism, bioregionalism, labor, wilderness, and ancient myth. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1975 for Turtle Island, a landmark collection that helped define modern environmental literature. Across decades of writing and activism, Snyder has consistently challenged readers to reconsider humanity’s relationship with the natural world.

On the occasion of Snyder’s ninety-fifth birthday, O Mother Gaia: The World of Gary Snyder stands as an intimate, thoughtful, and timely tribute to a poet whose work feels more essential than ever. This one-day screening at the historic Nevada Theatre offers a unique opportunity to experience the life and legacy of a visionary voice in American letters.