Beat poet wins Ruth Lilly prize

Gary Snyder, a poet known for his verse about nature and spirituality and a former member of the beat movement along with Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, has won the $100,000 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, awarded annually by the Chicago-based Poetry Foundation.

“His poetry is a testament to the sacredness of the natural world and our relation to it, and a prophecy of what we stand to lose if we forget that relation,” Christian Wiman, chairman of the selection committee, said Tuesday.

Snyder, who turns 78 in May, has published such collections as “Regarding Wave,” “No Nature” and “Turtle Island,” winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1975.