Adam Cornford

Biography

Adam Francis Cornford was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the son of Christopher Cornford and a lineal descendant of naturalist Charles Darwin. Cornford moved to California in 1969 after shifting his academic focus from biology to literature and art. He attended the University of California at Santa Cruz, where he studied with (and was first published by) kayak editor George Hitchcock; and San Francisco State University, where his mentor was the Greek surrealist Nanos Valaoritis. Among his books are three collections of poetry: Shooting Scripts (Black Stone Press, 1978); Animations (City Lights Books, 1988); and Decision Forest (Pantograph Press, 1997). He considers himself a neo-surrealist, and shares the surrealist view that the true goal of poetry is what the original group around André Breton called "the total liberation of the mind and of all that resembles it" ("Declaration of January 27, 1925"). He also has translated poetry by the surrealist Benjamin Perét and also the seminal account by Louis Aragon of the early days of the surrealist group, "A Wave of Dreams" (1925).

Cornford has published articles about labour movements and political and cultural analyses for Bad Subjects, The Progressive, The Dispatcher (the newspaper of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union) and the underground information workers' magazine Processed World, of which he was a co-editor during 1981–1992 as well as a resident graphic artist and cartoonist. His two longest poems, "Lightning Rod to Storm" in Animations (1988) and "The Snarling Gift" in Terminal Velocities (1993) are both concerned with popular movements for social and environmental justice. The same is true of the two experimental radio theatre works he co-authored with Daniel Steven Crafts, Fundamentals (an early critical take on fundamentalist "televangelism") and Ad Nauseam (a poetic examination of the deforming effects of commercial saturation on the imagination). There is a strong continuity between his poetic work and his activism, including his work as author and performer for the satirical antiwar street theatre troupe the John Wayne Peace Institute (1980–81) and his participation in Processed World. His work is discussed in this context in the essay by Andrew Joron, "Neo-Surrealism: Or, The Sun at Night".

In collaboration with Emmy-award-winning composer Daniel Steven Crafts, he has written libretti and other musical texts, most recently the "Spider Woman" section for the orchestral song-cycle From a Distant Mesa.

From 1987 to 2008, Cornford was a faculty member at New College of California in San Francisco, where he taught the history and composition of poetry, drama, and interdisciplinary performance. Among his courses was a graduate writing seminar in Science and poetry, reflecting his lifelong interest in the sciences, especially evolutionary biology, physics, and cosmology.

Collections and longer works

Journals

1969–present. Poetry and translations have appeared in:

(Print) Antaeus, Antenym, Bay Guardian, Beatitude, Caliban, City Lights Review, Compact Bone, Coracle, Gallery Works, Gas, Juxta, Mantis, Malthus, Melodeon, Mike & Dale's Younger Poets, The New College Review, Prosodia, Root & Branch, syllogism, Talisman, Terra, Velocities.

(Web): The Alterran Poetry Assemblage #2, The Alterran Poetry Assemblage #3, Angel Poetry, Counterexample Poetics, black fire white fire, Deep Oakland, Duration Press Archive, Facture 1, Facture 2 , Five Fingers Review, Issue 16, kayak, Montana Gothic, Orpheus Grid, ‘’The Pedestal Magazine’’, Processed World, ur-vox, MSNBC.com.

Anthologies

Poetry teaching – children

Selected essays

Librettos and other musical texts

Reviews

Awards