| Research Abstract |
This report, in providing a comprehensive history of Cid Corman's Origin magazine, explores the influence of Kyoto on Corman's highly influential international journal of poetry, letters, and essays. Although the first series of Origin (1951-1956) had already appeared at the time Corman came to Japan in 1958, from the second series (1961-1964) onward Corman based his poetry magazine in Kyoto. Origin continued through three more series, and then into further incarnations as "Origin Outlet" in Printed Matter: Japan's International Review of Literature & the Arts during the 1990s and finally as an online publication underway at the time of Corman's death in 2004. Regular contributors to Origin included some of the most influential poets of the latter half of the twentieth century: Charles Olson, Robert Creeley, William Bronk, Louis Zukofsky, Denise Levertov, Margaret Avison, Irving Layton, Gary Snyder, Theodore Enslin, Larry Eigner, and Lorine Neidecker, among others.
Furthermore, after Co
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rman's arrival in Kyoto, Origin exhibited a marked Japanese influence, introducing Western readers to the poetry of Kusano Shimpei and translations from Basho, Noh, and the Manyoshu. Corman's translations of Bashes Oku-no-Hosomichi (under the title Back Roads to Far Towns), tanka from the Manyoshu, Noh plays, and Kusano's poety were collaborative literary projects undertaken with Kamaike Susumu, whom Corman had met shortly after his arrival in Kyoto. As well, Corman's book publications of his own poetry by Origin Press included notable collaborations with the Japanese visual artist Ohno Hidetaka, while his other book projects included collaborations with the artists Tsutaka Waichi and Hayakawa Ikutada.
The results of this research incorporate work conducted in a number of North American university libraries and personal interviews with associates of Corman and contributors to Origin held in Canada, the United States and Japan. I visited Special Collections and Rare Books at Simon Fraser University Library in Burnaby, British Columbia; The Bancroft Library of the University of California at Berkeley; The Chancellor Paterson Library of Lakehead University Thunder Bay, Ontario; The Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library of The University of Toronto, Ontario; The Poetry Collection of the State University of New York at Buffalo; the Lilly Library of Indiana University; and Kent State University Special Collections in Ohio. In British Columbia I interviewed Daphne Marlatt, Stan Persky, George Stanley, Phyllis Webb, and Joan Givner; in Ontario Raymond Souster. Don Priestman, and Margaret Avison; in Maine Theodore Enslin; in Ohio Dean Keller and Sanford Marovitz; in Buffalo Robert Bertholf; in California Gary Snyder and Joanne Kyger; in Kyoto a number of individuals including Shizumi Carman, Edith Shiffert, Richard Steiner, Peter Makin, Peter Robinson, and Kamaike Susumu, retired professor of Doshisha University; in Tokyo Taylor Mignon; and, in Sendai, Scott Watson.
The report highlights Corman's contribution to the arts in Japan, particularly in Kyoto. Corman acted as a literary linchpin to the expatriate community in Kyoto, interacting with Will Petersen, Gary Snyder, Clayton Eshelman, Philip Whalen, Kenneth Rexroth, Edith Shiffert and many order "ex-pat" writers: Taguchi Tetsuya has remarked that "Kyoto became a center of American poetry because of his presence, "while John Solt has argued that "Cid made Kyoto the capital for American poetry in Japan." At the same time, Corman forged friendship that led to the above-mentioned collaborations with a number of important Japanese artists, testimony to his international importance as an editor, educator, translator, and poet during the second half of the twentieth century. Less
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