When I first read “Taroko Gorge” by Nick Montfort in 2012, it reminded me of Gary Snyder’s book Mountains and Rivers Without End, thematically, poetically, and by how they address endlessness in both nature and art.
My response then was a creative one: to place them in conversation by hacking or remixing Montfort’s “Taroko Gorge” source code and replacing the words used to generate his nature poem with words drawn from Snyder’s “Endless Streams and Mountains.” The result was an e-poem titled “Taroko Gary” which had an image of a segment of a Chinese landscape painting — a central inspiration for Snyder’s book.
This new version brings Lu Yuan’s “Mountains and Rivers Without End 《溪山無盡圖》” — the painting that inspired Snyder’s book and title — into the remix by making it the surface on which the poem unfolds endlessly.
Created by Leonardo Flores with programming assistance from Claude Code in February 2026.