Nothing Doing

by Cid Corman

Corman is one of modernism's enduring masters, a poet of prodigious talent and production whose work, both as poet and publisher, is intertwined with the Objectivists Louis Zukofsky and George Oppen, as well as the Black Mountain poets Robert Creeley and Charles Olson. Among such modern giants, Corman's verse is perhaps the most refined, refusing the temptation of "effect" for the tactile ink of line and "touch". Nothing/Doing presents a vital poetry of zen koan and cognitive conundrum, but also one of uncompromising wisdom, where Corman can definitively "There's only/one / this is it".

Genres: Poetry

154 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Reluctant Anesthetist]

There are things to be said. No doubt.
And in one way or another
they will be said. But to whom tell

the silences? With whom share them
now? For a moment the sky is
empty and then there was a bird.

THE RITE
To say sky
as one says
water. To

pour it in-
to a cup
and hold it

at the lips
and drink. Of
it. And at

sundown to
drink it
again as wine.

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I want the words
so simple and
true you think they

have come out of
your own mouth and
are breathing you
(pg. 62)

Reading Cid Corman, one is struck by the truths he is trying to capture, and the simplicity with which he is trying to capture it. With Nothing/Doing, Corman accomplishes both...

Wind sweeping
the willow
and willow

the wind but
neither can
be brushed off.
- So Easily (pg. 14)


A leaf on
the doorstep -
don't even

have to pick
it up to
know the news.
- Headline (pg. 130)

Far from being simple, the contents of Corman's poems are often rather complex, or allude to rather complex subjects. I was surprised to find so many literary references in the poems of Nothing/Doing, but not surprised to find Samuel Beckett, a like-minded minimalist, among those references...

To have gone

through this hell
and to find

it all in

the end a
poem a

comedy
- Alighieri (pg. 34)


Marx's error one
the Brothers didnt
make. They knew you can't

sit down and program
a community
but only grow by

giving yourself all
altogether to it
and getting the joke.
- Das Kapital (pg. 40)


Joyce understood how

the first word always
hankers after the

last confirming it

reverberating -
as if nothing else

could be said enough
- Riverrun (pg. 41)


Graved within

big and black

laid out flat

smooth stone: STEIN.
- A Rose for Gertrude (pg. 42)


Beckett knew life is

not absurd - but mad
and contagiously

so and must be faced

even as posed on
its own stage - potty -

indulging language.
- Beyond Crit (pg. 43)

Among my favourite poems in Nothing/Doing, although it is difficult to choose favourites, I would include the poems about poetry...

I can sympathize
with the barberry
whose business is

only to ripen
its fruit (tho maybe
not sweeten it)

protect it with thorns
so all winter it
holds on unless

hungry crows come to
pluck it. I mean
merely spend words

enough to purchase
silence with - tho few
poets prize it.
- 1848 (pg. 18)


There's only

one poem:

this is it.
- (pg. 121)

[Meg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Life is excessive -
the rock - without a word - knows -
nothing's monument.

Picked this up at always excellent Myopic Books in Chicago. A few pages in: "Yeah, this is coming home with me." A few more pages in: "Why the hell hasn't anyone told me about Cid Corman before?" Away from Chicago, back at home, "Seriously, why aren't people still obsessing about this?"

It's cool, friends. Found out late, but that's better than never. I have a short list of poets whose work I always search out in used bookstore poetry sections; Corman's now on it.

There's only
one poem:
this is it.

[Cooper Renner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brief poems, aphorisms, observations—many syllabic (even with haiku or tanka counts)—on life and art. Not necessarily what I consider “true poetry” (I tend to Dickinson’s definition), but a lot of fun and sometimes truly fine and terse.

[K · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Poetry becomes
that conversation we could
not otherwise have.”

the “one stroke painting” cover art is the perfect image