The Unhumanized Wisdom of Robinson Jeffers

Humanity
is the start of the race; I say
Humanity is the mould to break away from, the crust to
break through, the coal to break into fire,
The atom to be split.

― Robinson Jeffers

Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962) was a poet of the wild, a seer who stood at the edge of the Pacific, watching the waves carve eternity into stone. He was an impassioned lover of nature and a prophet of its endurance.

Those who read the poetry of Jeffers hear an uncommon voice.

He was one of those rare poetic saints who sought to awaken humanity from its fevered dream of dominion. He believed we were not meant to dominate the natural world, but to live in harmony with it. His poetry was an attempt to open the eyes of the soul, to awaken the overcivilized from their urban slumber, and to think in greater terms of “geological and astronomical time.”

Someone who knew him well described him as a “person of great emotional depth” who “suffered as only a seer can suffer in an age of vulgarity and material affluence.” His philosophy of life was closely aligned with that of Thoreau. Both were passionate spokesmen for the wilderness, advocates for the natural order, disciples of the untamed earth.

He once wrote: “As for me, I would rather be a worm in a wild apple than a son of man. But we are what we are, and we might remember not to hate any person, for all are vicious; And not to be astonished at any evil, all are deserved; And not to fear death; it is the only way to be cleansed.”