Inventory of the Gary Snyder Letters to Cid Corman,

Sara Gunasekara

Department of Special Collections

General Library

University of California, Davis

Davis, CA 95616-5292

Phone: (530) 752-1621

Fax: (530) 754-5758

Email: speccoll@ucdavis.edu

Creator: Snyder, Gary, 1930-

Title: Gary Snyder Letters to Cid Corman

Date (inclusive): 1957-1961

Extent: 0.2 linear feet

Abstract: Gary Snyder (1930- ), poet, essayist, translator, Zen Buddhist, environmentalist, lecturer, and teacher, is considered one of the most significant environmental writers of the twentieth century. This collection contains fourteen letters from 1957-1961 written by Gary Snyder in Japan to Cid Corman in the United States. Cid Corman (1924-2004) poet, editor, and translator, was the founder of the poetry magazine Origin and the Origin Press.

Physical location: Researchers should contact Special Collections to request collections, as many are stored offsite.

Repository: University of California, Davis. General Library. Dept. of Special Collections.

Davis, California 95616-5292

Collection number: MC152

Language of Material: Collection materials in English.

Biography

Gary Snyder (1930- ), poet, essayist, translator, Zen Buddhist, environmentalist, lecturer, and teacher, is considered one of the most significant environmental writers of the twentieth century.

Snyder has written more than twenty books of poetry and prose including: Riprap (1959), Myths & Texts (1960), Riprap & Cold Mountain Poems (1965), A Range of Poems (1966), The Back Country (1967), Earth House Hold: Technical Notes & Queries for Fellow Dharma Revolutionaries (1969), Regarding Wave (1970), Turtle Island (1974), The Old Ways (1977), The Real Work: Interviews & Talks, 1964-1979 (1980), Axe Handles (1983), Passage Through India (1983), Left Out in the Rain: New Poems 1947-1985 (1986), The Practice of the Wild (1990), No Nature: New and Selected Poems (1992), A Place in Space: Ethics, Aesthetics, and Watersheds, New and Selected Prose (1995), Mountains and Rivers Without End (1996), The Gary Snyder Reader (1999), The High Sierra of California (2002), Look Out: A Selection of Writings (2002), Danger on Peaks: Poems (2004), and Back on the Fire: Essays (2007) .

From 1986-2002, he served as a faculty member in the Department of English at the University of California, Davis, where he was instrumental in founding the "Nature and Culture" program (1993), an undergraduate academic major for students of society and the environment.

Recognition of Snyder's achievements includes the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his book Turtle Island, his appointment to the California Arts Council (1975-1979), and his induction into both the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1987) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1993). He also received the Bollingen Prize for Poetry (1997) and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize (2008).

For a more extensive biography of Gary Snyder, see the biography in the Gary Snyder Papers finding aid.

Scope and Content

This collection contains fourteen letters from 1957-1961 written by Gary Snyder in Japan to Cid Corman in the United States. The letters discuss Japanese culture, poetry, submissions to Origin, fellow poets, progress on "Mountains and Rivers," and Snyder's Zen study, among other topics.

Arrangement of the Collection

The letters are arranged chronologically.

Related Collections

Special Collections also holds the Gary Snyder Papers, D-050.

Indexing Terms

The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.

Snyder, Gary, 1930---Correspondence

Corman, Cid--Correspondence

Authors, American--20th century

Poets, American--20th century

Beat generation

Access

Collection is open for research.

Acquisition Information

Acquired in 1977 from Serendipity Books.

Processing Information

Sara Gunasekara processed this collection and created and encoded this finding aid.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], Gary Snyder Letters to Cid Corman, MC152, Department of Special Collections, General Library, University of California, Davis.

Publication Rights

Copyright is protected by the copyright law, chapter 17, of the U.S. Code. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Head of Special Collections. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the Department of Special Collections, General Library, University of California, Davis as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the researcher.

Box MC152:1-15

Snyder to Corman 1957 July 31-1961 November 26

Box MC152:1

1957 July 31