| Abstract: |
American poet Cid (Sidney) Corman was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on June 29,
1924. In 1951, Corman founded and edited the literary quarterly Origin, which
published the work of new or little-known authors. Corman has published over seventy volumes
of poetry and has also translated several French and Japanese poems, including work by Bashõ,
Kusano Shimpei, and Francis Ponge. The eight linear feet of material in the collection
consists of Corman’s daily journals, seventy-nine volumes extensively interleaved with news
clippings, letters, poems, photographs, and other ephemera. The collection also includes two
small volumes of Corman’s poems, translated into Portuguese by Stella Leonardos in 1964.
Nearly all of Corman’s entries record the time he woke, the weather, his daily tasks and
activities, and personal affairs. The content of the early journals reflects Corman’s work as
a poet, translator, and the editor of Origin. In the middle- to late-1950s Corman was
traveling, working, and living in Europe before finally settling in Japan, and the dominant
themes of this period include observations on literature, art, and the foreign cultures that
he encountered. The entries during this period are the most creative and spontaneous of the
collection. Also included in the collection are a few typescript and manuscript notes, poems,
and drafts of letters, unsent letters, gallery and concert programs, travel documents,
receipts, and other ephemera.
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