Norma Cole collection
Scope and Contents
The Norma Cole collection, 1987-2014, contains journals, notebooks, photographic material, and ephemera related to her poetry and visual art, as well as a significant amount of material related to her teaching, primarily at University of San Francisco and San Francisco State University.
Dates
- 1979-2014
Creator
- Cole, Norma (Person)
Language of Materials
Collection material is in English.
Terms of Access and Use
The Norma Cole collection, 1987-2014, is open for research.
Restrictions
Access to portions of this collection is RESTRICTED due to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
Restrictions
This collection has been minimally processed. Privacy protected information (including but not limited to certain educational, medical, financial, criminal, attorney-client, and/or personnel records) may be revealed during use of archival collections, particularly in collections that are unprocessed or have been minimally processed. Researchers agree to make no notes or other recordation of privacy protected information if found within the archival collections, and further agree not to publish, publicize, or disclose such information to any other party for any purpose if found within the archival collections.
Copyright
Copyright of papers in the collection may be held by their authors, or the authors' heirs or assigns. Researchers must obtain the written permission of the holder(s) of copyright and the Poetry Collection before requesting photocopies and/or publishing quotations from materials in the collection. Once permission is obtained, most papers may be copied in accordance with the library's usual procedures unless otherwise specified.
Historical Note
Norma Cole is a poet, translator, visual artist, and educator. Born in Toronto, Canada, she learned French at an early age and received her B.A. in Modern Languages and Literature and M.A. in French Language and Literature from the University of Toronto. She lived near Nice for several years, forming relationships with several French writers, and began to work with visual art. Following a return to Toronto to complete a degree in early childhood education, she moved to the San Francisco Bay Area. While taking classes at New College of California, she met Robert Duncan and Jess and a group of poets including Michael Palmer, Laura Moriarty, and Aaron Shurin. During this time she also traveled to France where she met Claude Royet-Journoud and Emmanuel Hocquard, whose work she translated into English.
Her other translation works include Danielle Collobert’s It, Then (1989), Anne Portugal’s Nude (2001), and Fouad Gabriel Naffah’s The Spirit God and the Properities Of Nitrogen (2004). She also edited and translated Crosscut Universe: Writing on Writing from France (2000), an anthology of poetry and poetics by contemporary French writers.
Cole’s books of poetry include Win These Posters and Other Unrelated Prizes Inside (Omnidawn, 2012), Natural Light (2009), Where Shadows Will: Selected Poems 1988-2008 (2009), Spinoza in Her Youth (2002), The Vulgar Tongue (2000), and Desire and Its Double (1998). Her experimental work SCOUT (Krupskaya, 2005), incorporated both text and image. From 2004 to 2006, Cole was the lead artist for Collective Memory, an installation, performance, and publication for “Poetry and its Arts: Bay Area Interactions 1954-2004” commissioned by the California Historical Society in San Francisco, California. The artists’ book Collective Memory was published by Granary Books in 2006.
Cole’s various awards include a fellowship from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, a Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation Award, Gertrude Stein Awards, the Robert D. Richardson Non-Fiction Award, and awards from the Fund for Poetry.
Cole has held adjunct and visiting professorships and residencies at over two dozen institutions, including the University of San Francisco, San Francisco State University, the Naropa Institute, the University of California, Berkeley, St. Mary’s College, Temple University, and Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles. She lives in San Francisco.
Extent
13 Linear Feet (19 boxes)
Abstract
Norma Cole is a poet, translator, visual artist, and educator. Born in Toronto, Canada, she learned French at an early age and received her B.A. in Modern Languages and Literature and M.A. in French Language and Literature from the University of Toronto. She has translated a number of French writers into English, and has published over 30 books and chapbooks of her own poetry, some of which incorporates her visual work. Cole has lived in San Francisco since the early 1970s and has held adjunct and visiting professorships and residencies at a number of institutions, including the University of San Francisco, San Francisco State University, the Naropa Institute, the University of California, Berkeley, St. Mary’s College, Temple University, and Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles.
The Norma Cole Collection, 1987-2014, contains journals, notebooks, photographic material, and ephemera related to her poetry and visual art, as well as a significant amount of material related to her teaching, primarily at University of San Francisco and San Francisco State University.
Arrangement
This collection is arranged in three series:
Acquisition Information
Collection was donated by Norma Cole in 2014. File "Eight drawings" purchased in 1987; see file for details.
Accruals and Additions
No further accruals are expected.
Separated Materials
Many books were removed and added to the Poetry Collection's monograph collection: Search "Norma Cole Collection" in the catalog for a list of these items.
Processing Information
Collection was processed by Marie Elia in 2017. Most materials were already well-organized and labeled, and the arrangement reflects this original order.
Source
- The Poetry Collection (Repository, Organization)
- Title
- Finding aid for the Norma Cole collection.
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Finding aid prepared by Marie Elia.
- Date
- 01 September 2017
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
- Language of description note
- English
Repository Details
Part of the The Poetry Collection Repository
420 Capen Hall
Buffalo New York 14260-1674 US
716-645-2917
716-645-3714 (Fax)
lpo-poetry@buffalo.edu