Cid Corman
Encyclopedia
Cid Corman (June 29, 1924 – March 12, 2004) was an American poet, translator and editor, most notably of Origin
, who was a key figure in the history of American poetry in the second half of the 20th century.
's Roxbury
neighborhood and grew up nearby in the Dorchester
neighborhood. His parents were both from the Ukraine
. From an early age he was an avid reader and showed an aptitude for drawing and calligraphy. He attended Boston Latin School
and in 1941 he entered Tufts University
, where he achieved Phi Beta Kappa honours and wrote his first poems. He was excused from service in World War II
for medical reasons and graduated in 1945.
Corman studied for his Master's degree
at the University of Michigan
, where he won the Hopwood poetry award, but dropped out when two credits short of completion. After a brief stint at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
, he spent some time travelling around the United States
, returning to Boston in 1948.
Here he ran poetry events in public libraries and, with the help of his high-school friend Nat Hentoff
, he started the country's first poetry radio program.
In 1952, Corman wrote: "I initiated my weekly broadcasts, known as This Is Poetry, from WMEX (1510 kc.) in Boston. The program has been usually a fifteen-minute reading of modern verse on Saturday evenings at seven thirty; however, I have taken some liberties and have read from Moby Dick and from stories by Dylan Thomas, Robert Creeley, and Joyce."
This program featured readings by Robert Creeley
, Stephen Spender
, Theodore Roethke
and many other Boston-based and visiting poets. He also spent some time at the Yaddo
artists' retreat in Saratoga Springs. It was about this time that Corman changed his name from Sydney Corman to the simpler "Cid." As Corman indicated in conversation, this name change--similar to Whitman
's assumption of Walt over Walter--signaled his beginnings as a poet for the common man.
During this period, Corman was writing prolifically and published in excess of 500 poems in about 100 magazines by 1954. He considered this to be a kind of apprenticeship, and none of these poems were ever published in book form.
, Robert Duncan
, Larry Eigner
, Denise Levertov
, William Bronk
, Theodore Enslin
, Charles Olson
, Louis Zukofsky
, Gary Snyder
, Lorine Niedecker
, Wallace Stevens
, William Carlos Williams
, Paul Blackburn and Frank Samperi
. The magazine also led to the establishment of Origin Press, which published books by a similar range of poets as well as by Corman himself and which remains currently active.
In 1954, Corman won a Fulbright Fellowship grant (with an endorsement from Marianne Moore
) and moved to France
, where he studied for a time at the Sorbonne
. He then moved to Italy
to teach English
in a small town called Matera. By this time, Corman had published a number of small books, but his Italian experiences were to provide the materials for his first major work, Sun Rock Man (1962). He also experimented with oral poetry, recording improvised poems on tape. These tapes were later to influence the talk-poems of David Antin
, one of the key developments in the emergence of performance poetry
.
At this time he produced the first English translations of Paul Celan
, even though he didn't have the poet's approval.
through the auspices of Will Petersen or, according to one account, poet Gary Snyder
. Here he continued to write and to run Origin and in 1959 he published Snyder's first book, Riprap. He remained in Japan until 1960, when he returned to the States for two years. Back in Japan he married Konishi Shizumi, a Japanese TV news editor. Corman began to translate Japanese poetry, particularly work by Bashō
and Kusano Shimpei.
The Cormans spent the years 1970 to 1982 in Boston, where they unsuccessfully tried to establish a number of small businesses. They returned to Kyoto, where they remained, running CC's Coffee Shop in Kyoto, "offering poetry and western-style patisserie".
s, Black Mountain poets
and Objectivists
, mainly through his championing as an editor, publisher and critic. However, he remained independent of all groups and fashions throughout his career.
Michael Carlson, who contributed to Origins and corresponded with Corman starting in the 1980s, described Corman's correspondence this way: "In the days before email his words came by return post, aerogrammes densely typed to take advantage of every inch of space, or postcards printed in his fine hand. They were encouraging, gossipy, and always challenging; he expected everyone to match his commitment to poetry as a way of life. But they also digressed into other shared enthusiasms: in my case his love of baseball and sumo
wrestling, and often into the difficulties of making a living in expensive Japan."
He was a prolific poet until his final illness, publishing more than 100 books and pamphlets. In 1990, he published the first two volumes of his selected poems, OF, running to some 1500 poems. Volume 3, with a further 750 poems appeared in 1998 and two further volumes are planned. Several collections of wide-ranging essays have been published. His translations (or co-translations) include Bashō
's Back Roads to Far Towns, Things by Francis Ponge
, poems by Paul Celan
and collections of haiku
.
Interestingly enough, Cid Corman did not speak, read or write Japanese, even though his co-translation with Susumu Kamaike of Bashō's Oku No Hosomichi (see above) is considered to be one of the most accurate in tone in the English language. Corman also felt himself able to translate from classical Chinese without so much as a minimal understanding of the language.
One of Corman's last appearances in the United States was at the 2003 centennial symposium and celebration in southern Wisconsin that honored his friend and fellow poet, Lorine Niedecker
. At the time, Corman spoke warmly about his connection to the Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin
, poet (playing the only known audio tape of Niedecker reading from her works). Niedecker had died in 1970, shortly after Corman had visited her. As he told friends and admirers during the 2003 gathering, Corman had not returned to the Black Hawk Island haunts of Niedecker since that first (and only) visit with Niedecker.
He died in Kyoto
, Japan
on March 12, 2004 after being hospitalized for a cardiac condition since January 2004.
Origin (magazine)
Origin magazine, is an American poetry magazine that was founded in 1951 by Cid Corman. The magazine provided an early platform for the work of Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, Gary Snyder, Theodore Enslin and other important, ground-breaking poets, who collectively created an alternative to academic...
, who was a key figure in the history of American poetry in the second half of the 20th century.
Early life and writing
Corman was born in BostonBoston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
's Roxbury
Roxbury, Massachusetts
Roxbury is a dissolved municipality and current neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It was one of the first towns founded in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630, and became a city in 1846 until annexed to Boston on January 5, 1868...
neighborhood and grew up nearby in the Dorchester
Dorchester, Massachusetts
Dorchester is a dissolved municipality and current neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It is named after the town of Dorchester in the English county of Dorset, from which Puritans emigrated and is today endearingly nicknamed "Dot" by its residents. Dorchester, including a large...
neighborhood. His parents were both from the Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
. From an early age he was an avid reader and showed an aptitude for drawing and calligraphy. He attended Boston Latin School
Boston Latin School
The Boston Latin School is a public exam school founded on April 23, 1635, in Boston, Massachusetts. It is both the first public school and oldest existing school in the United States....
and in 1941 he entered Tufts University
Tufts University
Tufts University is a private research university located in Medford/Somerville, near Boston, Massachusetts. It is organized into ten schools, including two undergraduate programs and eight graduate divisions, on four campuses in Massachusetts and on the eastern border of France...
, where he achieved Phi Beta Kappa honours and wrote his first poems. He was excused from service in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
for medical reasons and graduated in 1945.
Corman studied for his Master's degree
Master's degree
A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...
at the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
, where he won the Hopwood poetry award, but dropped out when two credits short of completion. After a brief stint at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a public research university located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States...
, he spent some time travelling around the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, returning to Boston in 1948.
Here he ran poetry events in public libraries and, with the help of his high-school friend Nat Hentoff
Nat Hentoff
Nathan Irving "Nat" Hentoff is an American historian, novelist, jazz and country music critic, and syndicated columnist for United Media and writes regularly on jazz and country music for The Wall Street Journal....
, he started the country's first poetry radio program.
In 1952, Corman wrote: "I initiated my weekly broadcasts, known as This Is Poetry, from WMEX (1510 kc.) in Boston. The program has been usually a fifteen-minute reading of modern verse on Saturday evenings at seven thirty; however, I have taken some liberties and have read from Moby Dick and from stories by Dylan Thomas, Robert Creeley, and Joyce."
This program featured readings by Robert Creeley
Robert Creeley
Robert Creeley was an American poet and author of more than sixty books. He is usually associated with the Black Mountain poets, though his verse aesthetic diverged from that school's. He was close with Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, Allen Ginsberg, John Wieners and Ed Dorn. He served as the Samuel P...
, Stephen Spender
Stephen Spender
Sir Stephen Harold Spender CBE was an English poet, novelist and essayist who concentrated on themes of social injustice and the class struggle in his work...
, Theodore Roethke
Theodore Roethke
Theodore Roethke was an American poet, who published several volumes of poetry characterized by its rhythm, rhyming, and natural imagery. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1954 for his book, The Waking.-Biography:...
and many other Boston-based and visiting poets. He also spent some time at the Yaddo
Yaddo
Yaddo is an artists' community located on a 400 acre estate in Saratoga Springs, New York. Its mission is "to nurture the creative process by providing an opportunity for artists to work without interruption in a supportive environment."...
artists' retreat in Saratoga Springs. It was about this time that Corman changed his name from Sydney Corman to the simpler "Cid." As Corman indicated in conversation, this name change--similar to Whitman
Whitman
-People:* Whitman , including:*Charles Whitman, tower sniper *Charles S. Whitman, New York politician *Walt Whitman, American essayist and poet *Marcus Whitman, was an American physician and Oregon missionary....
's assumption of Walt over Walter--signaled his beginnings as a poet for the common man.
During this period, Corman was writing prolifically and published in excess of 500 poems in about 100 magazines by 1954. He considered this to be a kind of apprenticeship, and none of these poems were ever published in book form.
Origin and Europe
In 1951, Corman began Origin in response to the failure of a magazine that Creeley had planned. The magazine typically featured one writer per issue and ran, with breaks, until the mid 1980s. Poets featured included Robert CreeleyRobert Creeley
Robert Creeley was an American poet and author of more than sixty books. He is usually associated with the Black Mountain poets, though his verse aesthetic diverged from that school's. He was close with Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, Allen Ginsberg, John Wieners and Ed Dorn. He served as the Samuel P...
, Robert Duncan
Robert Duncan (poet)
Robert Duncan was an American poet and a student of H.D. and the Western esoteric tradition who spent most of his career in and around San Francisco. Though associated with any number of literary traditions and schools, Duncan is often identified with the poets of the New American Poetry and Black...
, Larry Eigner
Larry Eigner
Laurence Joel Eigner / Larry Eigner was an American poet of the second half of the twentieth century and one of the principal figures of the Black Mountain School....
, Denise Levertov
Denise Levertov
-Early life and influences:Levertov was born and grew up in Ilford, Essex.Couzyn, Jeni Contemporary Women Poets. Bloodaxe, p74 Her mother, Beatrice Spooner-Jones Levertoff, came from a small mining village in North Wales...
, William Bronk
William Bronk
William Bronk was an American poet. He won the National Book Award in 1982.-Life and work:William Bronk was born in a house on Lower Main Street in Fort Edward, New York. He had an older brother Sherman who died young and two older sisters, Jane and Betty...
, Theodore Enslin
Theodore Enslin
Theodore Vernon Enslin was an American poet associated with Cid Corman's Origin and press. He is widely regarded as one of the most musical of American avant-garde poets. Enslin was born in Chester, Pennsylvania. His father was a biblical scholar and his mother a Latin scholar...
, Charles Olson
Charles Olson
Charles Olson , was a second generation American modernist poet who was a link between earlier figures such as Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams and the New American poets, which includes the New York School, the Black Mountain School, the Beat poets, and the San Francisco Renaissance...
, Louis Zukofsky
Louis Zukofsky
Louis Zukofsky was an American poet. He was one of the founders and the primary theorist of the Objectivist group of poets and thus an important influence on subsequent generations of poets in America and abroad.-Life:...
, Gary Snyder
Gary Snyder
Gary Snyder is an American poet , as well as an essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist . Snyder is a winner of a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry...
, Lorine Niedecker
Lorine Niedecker
Lorine Faith Niedecker was a Wisconsin poet and the only woman associated with the Objectivist poets...
, Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens was an American Modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as a lawyer for the Hartford insurance company in Connecticut.His best-known poems include "Anecdote of the Jar",...
, William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams was an American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. He was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine, having graduated from the University of Pennsylvania...
, Paul Blackburn and Frank Samperi
Frank Samperi
-Life:Frank Samperi was born in Brooklyn, New York, the illegitimate child of an Italian mother who died when he was 11. After two years in an orphanage, he was brought up by aunts. At 20 he enlisted and was sent to fight in the Korean war where he eventually suffered a nervous breakdown due to...
. The magazine also led to the establishment of Origin Press, which published books by a similar range of poets as well as by Corman himself and which remains currently active.
In 1954, Corman won a Fulbright Fellowship grant (with an endorsement from Marianne Moore
Marianne Moore
Marianne Moore was an American Modernist poet and writer noted for her irony and wit.- Life :Moore was born in Kirkwood, Missouri, in the manse of the Presbyterian church where her maternal grandfather, John Riddle Warner, served as pastor. She was the daughter of mechanical engineer and inventor...
) and moved to France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, where he studied for a time at the Sorbonne
University of Paris
The University of Paris was a university located in Paris, France and one of the earliest to be established in Europe. It was founded in the mid 12th century, and officially recognized as a university probably between 1160 and 1250...
. He then moved to Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
to teach English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
in a small town called Matera. By this time, Corman had published a number of small books, but his Italian experiences were to provide the materials for his first major work, Sun Rock Man (1962). He also experimented with oral poetry, recording improvised poems on tape. These tapes were later to influence the talk-poems of David Antin
David Antin
David Antin is a United States poet and critic. In the late 1960s, Antin began performing extemporaneously, improvising "talk poems" at readings and exhibitions...
, one of the key developments in the emergence of performance poetry
Performance poetry
Performance poetry is poetry that is specifically composed for or during a performance before an audience. During the 1980s, the term came into popular usage to describe poetry written or composed for performance rather than print distribution.-History:...
.
At this time he produced the first English translations of Paul Celan
Paul Celan
Paul Celan was a poet and translator...
, even though he didn't have the poet's approval.
Japan
In 1958, Corman got a teaching job in KyotoKyoto
is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.-History:...
through the auspices of Will Petersen or, according to one account, poet Gary Snyder
Gary Snyder
Gary Snyder is an American poet , as well as an essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist . Snyder is a winner of a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry...
. Here he continued to write and to run Origin and in 1959 he published Snyder's first book, Riprap. He remained in Japan until 1960, when he returned to the States for two years. Back in Japan he married Konishi Shizumi, a Japanese TV news editor. Corman began to translate Japanese poetry, particularly work by Bashō
Matsuo Basho
, born , then , was the most famous poet of the Edo period in Japan. During his lifetime, Bashō was recognized for his works in the collaborative haikai no renga form; today, after centuries of commentary, he is recognized as a master of brief and clear haiku...
and Kusano Shimpei.
The Cormans spent the years 1970 to 1982 in Boston, where they unsuccessfully tried to establish a number of small businesses. They returned to Kyoto, where they remained, running CC's Coffee Shop in Kyoto, "offering poetry and western-style patisserie".
Later work
Corman has been associated with the BeatBeat generation
The Beat Generation refers to a group of American post-WWII writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired...
s, Black Mountain poets
Black Mountain poets
The Black Mountain poets, sometimes called projectivist poets, were a group of mid 20th century American avant-garde or postmodern poets centered on Black Mountain College.-Background:...
and Objectivists
Objectivist poets
The Objectivist poets were a loose-knit group of second-generation Modernists who emerged in the 1930s. They were mainly American and were influenced by, amongst others, Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams...
, mainly through his championing as an editor, publisher and critic. However, he remained independent of all groups and fashions throughout his career.
Michael Carlson, who contributed to Origins and corresponded with Corman starting in the 1980s, described Corman's correspondence this way: "In the days before email his words came by return post, aerogrammes densely typed to take advantage of every inch of space, or postcards printed in his fine hand. They were encouraging, gossipy, and always challenging; he expected everyone to match his commitment to poetry as a way of life. But they also digressed into other shared enthusiasms: in my case his love of baseball and sumo
Sumo
is a competitive full-contact sport where a wrestler attempts to force another wrestler out of a circular ring or to touch the ground with anything other than the soles of the feet. The sport originated in Japan, the only country where it is practiced professionally...
wrestling, and often into the difficulties of making a living in expensive Japan."
He was a prolific poet until his final illness, publishing more than 100 books and pamphlets. In 1990, he published the first two volumes of his selected poems, OF, running to some 1500 poems. Volume 3, with a further 750 poems appeared in 1998 and two further volumes are planned. Several collections of wide-ranging essays have been published. His translations (or co-translations) include Bashō
Matsuo Basho
, born , then , was the most famous poet of the Edo period in Japan. During his lifetime, Bashō was recognized for his works in the collaborative haikai no renga form; today, after centuries of commentary, he is recognized as a master of brief and clear haiku...
's Back Roads to Far Towns, Things by Francis Ponge
Francis Ponge
Francis Jean Gaston Alfred Ponge was a French essayist and poet. In many ways, he combined the two — essay and poem — into a single art form.-Life:...
, poems by Paul Celan
Paul Celan
Paul Celan was a poet and translator...
and collections of haiku
Haiku
' , plural haiku, is a very short form of Japanese poetry typically characterised by three qualities:* The essence of haiku is "cutting"...
.
Interestingly enough, Cid Corman did not speak, read or write Japanese, even though his co-translation with Susumu Kamaike of Bashō's Oku No Hosomichi (see above) is considered to be one of the most accurate in tone in the English language. Corman also felt himself able to translate from classical Chinese without so much as a minimal understanding of the language.
One of Corman's last appearances in the United States was at the 2003 centennial symposium and celebration in southern Wisconsin that honored his friend and fellow poet, Lorine Niedecker
Lorine Niedecker
Lorine Faith Niedecker was a Wisconsin poet and the only woman associated with the Objectivist poets...
. At the time, Corman spoke warmly about his connection to the Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin
Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin
Fort Atkinson is a city in Jefferson County, Wisconsin, United States. It is located on the Rock River, a few miles upstream from Lake Koshkonong. In 1996, Money Magazine named Fort Atkinson "One of America's Hottest Little Boomtowns." The population was 11,621 at the 2000 census.- History :Fort...
, poet (playing the only known audio tape of Niedecker reading from her works). Niedecker had died in 1970, shortly after Corman had visited her. As he told friends and admirers during the 2003 gathering, Corman had not returned to the Black Hawk Island haunts of Niedecker since that first (and only) visit with Niedecker.
He died in Kyoto
Kyoto
is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.-History:...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
on March 12, 2004 after being hospitalized for a cardiac condition since January 2004.
External links
- Thirty-one poems
- Cid Corman on poetry over the radio, October 1952
- CID CORMAN & ORIGIN PRESS
- A large collection of Cid Corman's manuscripts is held at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin
- Additional papers (1942-76) are held in the Special Collections library at Kent State University
- Additional papers (1962-1964) are held in the Special Collections library at Washington University, Saint Louis
- An essay on Corman
- New Origin Web site
- http://poetry.about.com/cs/contemporarypoets/p/corman.htm About.com Web page on Corman
- http://books.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,11617,1192272,00.html obituary in The Guardian of London
- interview with Cid Corman by Taylor Mignon