Origin (magazine)

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Origin magazine, an American poetry magazine founded in 1951 by Cid Corman, (its longstanding editor), and Charles Olson, provided an early platform for the work of Olson, Robert Creeley, Gary Snyder, Theodore Enslin, and other important, ground-breaking poets, who collectively created an alternative to the academic poets of the 1950's.^[1]

Corman recruited Olson as a contributing editor when he started Origin. Their correspondence was printed in 1969 as Letters For Origin. The collection details "an enormous battle of creative energy".^[1]

Origin published Olson's In Cold Hell, In Thicket, as its eighth issue, in 1953 as well as Louis Zukofsky's key work, A 1-12. "The collection, The Gist Of Origin (1979) remains a groundbreaking work", according to Michael Carlson.^[1]

Corman edited the magazine for decades, even when he was abroad in France, Italy and Japan.

The Origin sixth series, comprised of skeletal notes left behind by Corman is made up of four online issues, released in 2007:

http://www.longhousepoetry.com/forthcoming.html

sixth series issues one and two: http://www.longhousepoetry.com/origin.html

In late 2003 Corman, after his trip to Milwaukee and Lorine Niedecker Centenary USA visit, conceived the idea of Origin's Sixth Series to be an online and printed edition. Upwards of twenty issues were planned in collaborative assistance with Chuck Sandy, a newly found friend and educator who also resided in Japan.

Unfortunately, Cid only sketched out Origin issues 1-4, instead of his intended twenty issues, and this came with brief notes, recommendations and plans for the featured poets.