Cid Corman facts for kids

Cid Corman (born Sidney Corman, June 29, 1924 – March 12, 2004) was an important American poet, translator, and editor. He is best known for creating and editing a magazine called Origin. Cid Corman played a big role in American poetry during the second half of the 1900s.

Cid Corman's Early Life and Education

Cid Corman was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in the Roxbury area. He grew up in the nearby Dorchester neighborhood. His parents came from the Ukraine. From a young age, he loved reading and was good at drawing and fancy writing.

He went to Boston Latin School. In 1941, he started at Tufts University. There, he earned high honors and wrote his first poems. He did not serve in World War II due to health reasons. He graduated from Tufts in 1945.

Corman then studied for his Master's degree at the University of Michigan. He won a poetry award there called the Hopwood award. However, he left before finishing his degree. After a short time at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he traveled across the United States. He returned to Boston in 1948.

Corman's Career in Poetry

Starting Out: Radio and Writing

Corman's first book, Subluna, was printed privately in 1944. He organized poetry events in public libraries. With help from his friend Nat Hentoff, he started the country's first poetry radio show.

In 1952, Corman began his weekly radio show, This Is Poetry. It aired on WMEX radio in Boston. The show was usually 15 minutes long. He read modern poems on Saturday evenings. Sometimes, he would read from famous books like Moby Dick. He also read stories by writers like Dylan Thomas.

Many poets read their work on his show. These included Robert Creeley, Stephen Spender, and Theodore Roethke. Around this time, he changed his name from Sydney to "Cid." This change showed he wanted to be a poet for everyone.

During this period, Corman wrote a lot. By 1954, he had published over 500 poems. These appeared in about 100 different magazines. He saw this as a way to learn and grow as a poet. None of these early poems were ever put into a book.

Origin Magazine and Time in Europe

In 1951, Corman started Origin magazine. He began it after another magazine project fell through. Origin usually featured one writer per issue. It ran, with some breaks, until the mid-1980s.

Many famous poets were featured in Origin. These included Robert Creeley, Denise Levertov, William Carlos Williams, and Gary Snyder. The magazine also led to the creation of Origin Press. This press published books by many of the same poets. Origin Press is still active today.

In 1954, Corman received a Fulbright Fellowship. This grant helped him move to France. He studied for a while at the Sorbonne in Paris. Then, he moved to Italy to teach English. He taught in a small town called Matera.

By this time, Corman had published several small books. His experiences in Italy gave him ideas for his first major work, Sun Rock Man (1962). He also tried out "oral poetry." This meant recording poems he made up on the spot. These recordings later influenced other poets.

He also created the first English translations of poems by Paul Celan.

Living and Working in Japan

In 1958, Corman got a teaching job in Kyoto, Japan. He continued to write and run Origin from there. In 1959, he published Gary Snyder's first book, Riprap. He stayed in Japan until 1960. Then he returned to the United States for two years.

Back in Japan, he married Konishi Shizumi. She was a Japanese TV news editor. Corman began to translate Japanese poetry. He focused on works by poets like Bashō and Kusano Shimpei.

From 1980 to 1982, the Cormans lived in Boston. They tried to start some small businesses there, but it didn't work out. They returned to Kyoto, where they stayed. They ran a coffee shop called CC's Coffee Shop. It offered poetry and Western-style pastries.

Later Works and Influence

Corman was connected to groups like the Beat poets and Black Mountain poets. This was mainly because he supported them as an editor and publisher. However, he always stayed independent. He did not belong to any single group.

Michael Carlson, a writer who worked with Corman, described his letters. He said Corman's letters were encouraging and challenging. Corman expected everyone to be as dedicated to poetry as he was. He also wrote about his love for baseball and sumo wrestling.

Corman was a very productive poet until his final illness. He published over 100 books and pamphlets. In 1990, he published the first two volumes of poems called OF. These books contained about 1500 new poems. Volume 3, with 750 more poems, came out in 1998. Volumes 4 and 5 were published in 2015, completing the work.

He also published several collections of essays. His translations included Bashō's Back Roads to Far Towns. He also translated poems by Francis Ponge and Paul Celan. He even translated collections of haiku.

Cid Corman did not speak, read, or write Japanese. Yet, his co-translation of Bashō's Oku No Hosomichi is considered very accurate. Corman also felt he could translate from classical Chinese without knowing the language.

One of Corman's last public appearances was in 2003. He attended a celebration for his friend, the poet Lorine Niedecker. Corman spoke fondly of Niedecker. He even played the only known audio recording of her reading her poems. Niedecker had passed away in 1970.

Cid Corman died in Kyoto, Japan, on March 12, 2004. He had been in the hospital since January 2004 due to a heart condition.