Good day today. Got up in the morning, downed a double dose of meds and made my way to my old high-school. I had been invited by my good friend and english teacher from back in the day to sit in on a lesson of his. The first time he taught me was 22 years ago. Unbelievable. Anyway, The class was working on ‘Equus‘ by Peter Schaffer. One of the most extraordinary plays of our time. Reading it is one of the things you MUST do before you die. It was very cool. The students were motivated, intelligent and had a nice groove. My friend was teaching just like back in the day. When I left I felt inspired and happy. I wanted to come home and finally get to work on my ‘Lüneburg’ entry for this here blog. Then I got on the little red train, saw a newspaper on an empty seat and began reading it.

First I saw a photo of Suri Cruise. The fact that I do not have to explain at this point who Suri Cruise is, is shocking enough. So, There she was, 3.5 years old, wearing little high-heel shoes.

Then there was an advertisement for Chris Brown’s new upcoming album, ‘Graffiti’.

I let that sink in and then I was overcome by shame. So much shame. My mood changed. I realized how pathetic we are. Yes, you. And me. I know the names of all of Brangelina’s children. I buy the most expensive toothpaste because TV tells me it’s the best one. I eat food with ingredients that kill laboratory rats. I play video games. I believe that the pharmaceutical industry is creating products to heal me. I trust that the safest place for my money is the bank. I drink Starbucks coffee. I watch 40 minute TV shows with 20 minutes of commercials. I go to extremely loud places with excessively drugged and drunk people around me to have a good time. I smoke cigarettes. I don’t believe the GOD fairytale, but I’m sure a bunch of you guys do. I watch Brett Michaels, Flavor Flav and their hookers on a channel for zit-popping teenagers. I pay 230 bucks to see a mediocre band lip sync a shitty set for 75 minutes. I would be nothing without my i-Phone, etc, etc.

‘Humanity, you never had it to begin with.’ – Charles Bukowski

What I want to say is that no 3-year-old child should be wearing high-heels and be permanently exposed to the media. It’s sick and perverse. Chris Brown, we all make mistakes. But did you see what he did to that girl? He beat the living shit out of her. Apology on Larry King Live, a bit of community service and now a new album. Speechless.  If there were a God, he’d be looking down on us thinking, ‘they had potential…’. Sometimes the fact that we all behave so pathetically just overwhelms me. The sheer stupidity of pretty much everybody. Youth may be wasted on the young, but today I feel like life is wasted on us. Still, I’m convinced that this whole game here is actually quite simple and could be very enjoyable. But we are choosing more and more to ignore that fact. Now that’s impressive.
‘Graffiti’ – Chris Brown / Sony Music 2009

Anyway, after the shit has hit the fan it’s time to clean up. Art can rescue us from ourselves and everyone else. So let’s Rock N’ Roll. Creative Utopia time! The german über-artist Jonathan Meese has already declared his ‘Diktatur der Kunst’ (Dictatorship of Art). He says that all forms of social / political coexistence have been attempted and they failed miserably. The last chance to avoid total self-destruction is that we let ART take over. Sounds like a plan to me.

Whatever.

Look up Jonathan Meese. He is an absolutely extraordinary artist. Listen to ‘Let’s Dance’ by David Bowie. Dance to it while you do. Not much sense in any of this, but I do feel better now.

‘A reel Dreckische with masses of Pänskäfusi turns a Fonz into a Rittar. Or is it the other way around?’ – TIM

“each man’s hell is in a different
place: mine is just up and
behind
my ruined
face.”

Charles Bukowski

Un poema es una ciudad llena de calles y cloacas,
llena de santos, héroes, pordioseros, locos,
llena de banalidad y embriaguez,
llena de lluvia y truenos y periodos
de ahogo, un poema es una ciudad en guerra,
un poema es una ciudad preguntando por qué a un reloj,
un poema es una ciudad ardiendo,
un poema es una ciudad bajo las armas
sus barberías llenas de borrachos cínicos,
un poema es una ciudad donde Dios cabalga desnudo
por las calles como Lady Godiva,
donde los perros ladran en la noche y persiguen
la bandera; un poema es una ciudad de poetas,
muchos de ellos muy similares
y envidiosos y amargados…
un poema es esta ciudad ahora,
a 50 millas de ninguna parte
a las 9:09 de la mañana,
el sabor a licor y cigarrillos,
sin policía, sin amantes, caminando en las calles,
este poema, esta ciudad, cerrando sus puertas,
fortificada, casi vacía,
enlutada sin lágrimas, envejecida sin pena,
las montañas rocosas,
el océano como una llama de lavanda,
una luna carente de grandeza,
una leve música de ventanas rotas…

Un poema es una ciudad, un poema es una nación,
un poema es el mundo…
Y ahora pongo esto bajo el cristal
para el loco escrutinio del editor
y la noche está en cualquier lado
y lánguidas damas grises se alinean
el perro sigue al perro al estuario
las trompetas anuncian los patíbulos
mientras los hombrecillos deliran sobre cosas
que no pueden hacer.

Charles Bukowski

‘This is presented as a work of fiction and dedicated to nobody.’

charles bukowski

Se volete leggere un buon libro, uno di quelli che v fa venire la voglia di leggerne altri dello stesso autore vi consiglio di leggere “ la confraternita dell’uva” di John Fante(Einaudi editore). In questo libro l’autore descrive il tumultuoso rapporto con il padre. Il vecchio Nick, Nicola, da Torricella Peligna, Abruzzo.

La trama del libro (scritto tra il 1974 e il 1975, quando cioè lo scrittore cominciò a subire i primi seri danni del diabete che lo portarono alla cecità e all’amputazione delle gambe) è presto riassunta dallo stesso Fante in una lettera all’amico di una vita, Carey Mc Williams: «La storia di quattro italiani vecchi e ubriaconi di Roseville, un racconto su mio padre e i suoi amici».

Il bizzoso, testardo, dongiovanni, beone, giocatore incallito, ma raffinato muratore Nick Molise deve costruire un affumicatoio in montagna e chiede aiuto al figlio scrittore, trattandolo come un apprendista sbarbatello. Ma nella gita in montagna il vecchio muore. «La confraternita dell’uva» è, accanto a «1933, un anno terribile» e «Sogni di Bunker Hill», uno dei più bei libri di Fante, forse meglio anche di «Chiedi alla polvere»..

Fante è uno scrittore di italoamericano, che descrive un’America fatta di povera gente, che sbarca il lunario con fatica e che stenta ad integrasi in un contesto sociale che considera con diffidenza gli immigrati italiani.

Di lui Charles Bukowski disse di considerarlo”il migliore scrittore che abbia mai letto” e “il narratore più maledetto d’America” (Bukowski giunse a dichiarare “Fante era il mio Dio”). Bukowski gli chiede l’autorizzazione di ristampare Chiedi alla polvere, per cui scrive un’appassionata prefazione.  Costrinse con le minacce la casa editrice Black Sparrow per cui scriveva a ristampare le opere di Fante, da lungo tempo fuori stampa.

Se poi avete voglia di approfondire potete leggere anche “chiedi alla polvere “,una struggente originale storia d’amore. Leggere John Fante è una grande emozione.

bukowski.org.ua

S-a deschis ( pana duminica, 22 noiembrie inclusiv ) targul de carte de toamna Kilipirim 2009. Nush care e titulatura exacta, don’t really care anyway. M-am dus in vreo doua zile pe-acolo ( nu mi-au ajuns banii pentru un singur raid printre tarabe ) si am fost orientat spre zona macho a literaturii in tot ce am cumparat.

Ca de exemplu Hemingway ( “Batranul si marea”, editia cartonata de la Polirom ), cu barbatii lui stoici, seducatori, macho, laconici si impenetrabili, dar undeva in spatele evenimentelor care ii conduc. Ca de exemplu Irvine Welsh ( “Porno” ), scotianul in cartile caruia eroii sunt niste anti-eroi, niste drogati, si/sau niste ratati, intotdeauna membri ai clasei de jos, huligani, etc. Ca de exemplu Sam Savage ( “Firmin” ). Ok, poate asta nu, dar oricum, e vorba despre un sobolan care-si doreste sa fie barbat, so why not?

Si mai ales ca de exemplu Charles Bukowski ( “Femei” ), in al carui roman semi-auto-biografic personajul central e un alcoolic afemeiat, un fel de satír literat ( de altfel si seamana fizic ), pe langa care Henry Miller pare o domnisoara din pension.

Un soi de bonus, la final:

Lo scrittore americano Charles Bukowski, conosciuto dai suoi ammiratori come Buk oppure Hank, vezzeggiativo di Henry, suo primo nome di battesimo, ripudiato come tutto quanto lo legava a suo padre, a quindici anni dalla morte, è più vitale di molti viventi.

 Non passa mese senza che sia annunciata l’uscita di una nuova scelta di poesie, un’antologia di racconti, romanzi postumi, e anche se c’è chi se ne lamenta, biasimando gli editori che «raschiano il fondo del barile», non si può imputare a un autore la sua prolificità, la quale nel caso di uno scrittore vero – e che Bukowski lo sia lo dimostrano romanzi come Factotum, Donne e, soprattutto, Post Office – non è affatto un difetto. Del resto, Dostoevskij e Proust, Pynchon o Roth (Philip ma anche Henry) non hanno scritto certo meno pagine di Bukowski.

 Accuse infondate. L’accusa di grafomania poi si sbriciola di fronte alla freschezza e al salutare, intatto anticonformismo che attraversa i testi raccolti in Azzeccare i cavalli vincenti (Feltrinelli, pp.269, euro 17), raccolta di saggi e scritti apparsi su riviste perlopiù underground, giornali e taccuini tra il 1944 e il 1990. Testi inediti in Italia e che ci offrono lati poco conosciuti del leggendario scrittore, rischiosamente imbalsamato nella sua immagine di impenitente anarchico alcolista chino sulla macchina da scrivere dopo aver passato una mattinata all’ippodromo (per lui l’ippodromo era come le corride per Hemingway: un modo di conoscere la vita e la morte) con Mozart alla radio, una confezione di birra da sei (grande) a portata di mano e posacenere pieno.

 In Ripensando a uno dei grandi Hank ci parla del suo rapporto con Ezra Pound, e va dritto al punto controverso, il legame arte-ideologia: «Se Pound fosse un antisemita o un fascista, o se avesse il diritto di essere entrambe le cose, è un altro argomento. I discorsi alla radio che ho letto sembravano più barbugliamenti imbecilli di un ragazzino delle superiori che si crede intelligente che le farneticazioni di un pazzo. Per di più, in molte menti creative c’è la naturale urgenza di conoscere anche il resto. E a volte si ha il desiderio di abbracciare l’altra fazione, solo per l’inferno che ne può derivare. Perché la vecchia fazione c’è da così tanto tempo, è così solida, e sembra così svilita. Céline, Hamsun e altri sono stati sopresi, a volte, a fare così. E non sono stati perdonati. Nel tentativo di andare al di là del Bene e del Male (se esistono), l’ago della bilancia a volte oscilla e tende verso il Male (se esiste) perché sembra più interessante – specialmente quando i tuoi connazionali accettano ciecamente di seguire quello che gli viene detto essere il Bene (e senza mai dubitarne)».

 Parole che suonano come largamente comprensive – se non un’assoluzione piena – e del resto lo stesso Bukowski, quando era ancora uno svogliato studente all’Università della California, abbandonata dopo due anni, amava atteggiarsi a simpatizzante di Hitler «per anticonformismo», e, paradossalmente, era l’unico pacifista tra i suoi compagni, che invece caldeggiavano l’entrata in guerra contro la Germania.

 Posizioni politiche. Identificare una collocazione politica precisa di Bukowski si può fare, ma a rischio di venir smentiti cinque minuti dopo, considerata la mercuriale mobilità delle sue idee e convizioni, che sembravano obbedire più a un’estetica dell’attimo, a un irrazionalismo appreso da Nietzsche e Artaud (i suoi maestri, insieme con Dostoevskij, Céline, Hamsun e Fante) che a reali preoccupazioni politiche. Stupisce perciò la nettezza e quasi la saggezza che, in un testo del 1970, quindi immediatamente dopo l’Estate dell’Amore e la Contestazione sessantottina, esprime nello scritto significativamente intitolato Dovremmo far saltare il culo allo zio Sam? e rivolto esplicitamente agli studenti rivoltosi: «La mia porta è aperta alla Destra e alla Sinistra, ai bianchi e ai neri e ai gialli e ai rossi e ai diversi tipi di uomini, di donne; lebische, omosessuali. Non insegno, imparo. (…) Se distruggi la Sinistra tendi a diventare la Sinistra; se distruggi la Destra tendi a diventare la Destra, è come argento vivo, un’altalena (…) Sarebbe ora di imparare a usare la testa (…) Adesso gli intellettuali scendono di nuovo in piazza per la “Rivoluzione”. Viene bruciata una banca, mettono bombe all’IBM, alla compagnia telefonica e da altre parti… Bene, io sono un fotografo della vita, non un attivista. Ma prima di decidervi per la Rivoluzione sinceratevi che abbiate buone possibilità di vincerla. E prima di affrontare le truppe per la strada, DECIDI e TIENI A MENTE con chi li rimpiazzarai e perché. Dimmi cos’hai in serbo per me prima che io rada al suolo una banca. Gli slogan Romantici non servono a niente. Io sono per un mondo migliore per mia figlia, per me, per voi, ma state attenti. Un rovesciamento di potere non è la cura. Potere al popolo non è la cura. Il potere non è la cura. Quando rifletti non devi porre l’attenzione su come distruggere un governo, ma su come crearne uno migliore. Non cadere in trappola, non farti fregare ancora».

E conclude: «Tutto quello che possiedi deve stare in una valigia; allora la tua mente potrà essere libera». Un dubbio: non sarà che tra i suoi maestri, accanto a Nietzsche e Artaud, il vecchio Buk annoverasse anche Hermann Hesse?

Giordano Tedoldi

Libero

a self portrait of Charles Bukowski at work

Not too long ago, I discovered a stack of about 50 copies of Ham and Rye, by Charles Bukowski, sitting in one of the local bookstores that is located in our downtown area in Portland, Maine. No, this great American writer did not all of a sudden find a surge of hidden popularity, here along the rocky coastline of Maine, but rather his classic novel was required reading at one of the local universities and so this bookstore had found it necessary to stockpile one of “Hank’s” more important works of fiction.

Still, since that great day of discovery, I have found a new fascination with the big boozer, which has been spurred on by two DVD’s of his movies (Barfly and Factotem), along with a lengthy biography (Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life by Howard Sounes) and several readings of his poetry, which have come my way courtesy of “You Tube”.

All in all, it is a fascinating record and literary achievement by one of America’s most loved and eccentric authors. I suppose now the late Mr. Bukowski is reaching that stage in his literary career, where he will be become more of a standard fare among college students and scholars.

From what little I have sampled of his poetry, I have found it to be quite humorous and profound all at the same time. In fact there are some great links on You Tube to various people reading his poems. There are even some video clips of Bukowski reading his own poetry. Here’s one of him reading, “Bluebird”, (audio only). And here’s another link to the poem, “The Tragedy of the Leaves”. Both of these come from You Tube.

Charles Bukowski at work

But unfortunately there was a very dark side to “Henry” or  “Hank” as he was often called. The two films barely scratched the surface, but Howard Sounes, travels far into the alcoholic and sometimes violent world of  Bukowski, for it seems that not only did the poet have a problem with alcohol, he also had a problem of violent fights and feuds with some of his female acquaintances, especially when he was in an inebriated state. Some of these altercations  left Bukowski in the slammer for a few days

His life story is something else. Born in Germany, Charles immigrated to America with his parents, eventually finding a home in the L.A. area. As a teenager he had an extreme case of acne that is hard to fathom and so his main solace became the public library in Los Angeles. From a childhood spent coming of age during the height of the depression Charles developed a wit, an attitude and a style that would eventually make him a much read poet and novelist, known the world over. From what I have read and that is not very much his literary efforts are well worth the time invested.

Why is it that one would find it necessary to compose poetry? It’s just prose laid out in lines and made to rhyme (in a very forced way, one could add). It’s an art form that won’t stand up to the modern age of loud music, rap, and the shot glass version of a news story that is so popular today. Poetry will go the way of classical music, only being enjoyable to a few people who have devoted their lives to understanding it (and who are probably out of touch with everyday people anyway). While I can’t provide a rebuttal to all of these solutions (I’ll save some of them for a later date), I can try to give poetry’s use, and necessity, in my own life.

Poetry is for me a way to formulate problems. Notice I have mentioned nothing about solutions. Solutions are not a necessary part of a poem; if a poem decides to simply pose a problem without a solution, it is not then discarded. Poetry is a way for me to take the problems that arise in life, especially the ones that seem unresolvable and decide to languish in my brain for hours on end, and force them into an organization. If my life presents me with a problem that I have found unresolvable, or that disturbs me to my core, I can take that problem and enclose it in this progression of verse.

To put it simply, I can take this conundrum and say to it, “I know that you have drilled and pounded my brain to mush, and I know you don’t have an answer right now. So I’m going to give you an end by forcing you to get yourself organized (however loosely), and I’m going to resolve you by putting a period at the end of you (in most cases).”

Thus I am left with my problem in capsule-form, something that I can swallow. The truth is that, as humans, we have more problems than we will ever have solutions for. If I were to let these problems fester without ever trying to put them to bed, I would have strung myself up by a wire by now. But can’t this outlook on life make one seem rather “negative”? How do I get out of total pessimism after I’ve admitted that I’m drowning in problems?

One can find in poetry a different reaction to “positive” and “negative” poems, and I would say that they’re not as different in content as some would argue. If one views poetry in the way I’ve presented, then one finds that “negative” poetry (See Charles Bukowski’s Hell is a lonely place) is poetry that merely presents the problem as it stands, but admits that the solution to this problem is not readily at hand. “Positive” poetry (See John Donne’s Holy Sonnet X) is poetry that presents the problem AND solution, but presents them as concomitant in some sense.

So we see that while the results may be different, something “positive” will always include something “negative,” if only inasmuch as it is a response to this negativeness.

Positivity does not deny that the negative exists. It merely presents a response to the fact of the negative. The true positive cannot exist without a truly manifest negative.

I seem to have gone the long way round to get to this, but this is the best defense I can give of my art form and the necessity of its existence, at least in my own life. So give yourself a little breathing room and don’t let those problems get you down.

Through Christ,
Ben

Minhas incursões sobre Charles Bukowski (opa!) estão dando bons frutos. Recebi agora uma excelente indicação bibliográfica: o “Guia de Drinques dos Grandes Escritores Americanos”, publicada pela Jorge Zahar. Link

Segundo Cecília, da Edelman/Zahar, o drinque favorito do velho Buk era o Spoilermaker, preparado com whisky e cerveja e, segundo ele, ideal para ficar bêbado depressa. Isso merece um teste empírico, com urgência

V M Husten: I am worried

Fall On Me: So am I.

VMH: …

Fall On Me: Baby, we’ll be fine.

VMH:

…

H: Need to go to the loo.

K: k.

…

K: You have a bladder like a 90 year old hamster.

H: Love is a hamster from heaven.

K: ?

H: When I was a teenager, I was into, and oh nvm, Bukowski had this title …

K: In the 60’s, when you were even then trying to be young.

H: Fuck you. Anyway. “Love Is a Dog From Hell”, it was called. Somehow, it stuck.

K: Sure.

Dream of …

Nowt more.

Nowt less.

Californication.

-excerpt from Texan, by Charles Bukowski

Thanks to Erika for the inspiration on this.

By Jason Diamond

Los Angeles has always been this strange and fascinating place to me that I will forever look at squarely from the perspective of somebody that has little to no intention of ever calling the it my home.  This is sorta funny considering I live in the single biggest freakshow on the planet,  making it a bit hypocritical of me to attempt and diss LA for any of it’s eccentric qualities, because to be honest, I really like the place, it just weirds me out for a bunch of reasons.

Even though John Cheever wrote the story, “O City of Broken Dreams” about New York, I always think to myself “that story makes me think more of L.A. than my hometown”,  because something about L.A.  has always seemed like it’s this dark place where dreams go to die, or people go to sell their souls.  After reading Arthur Krystol’s piece in the New Yorker, on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s years in Hollywood, about him trying (in vain) to squeeze some bit of magic from what was left of his talent, I got to thinking more and more of what makes Los Angeles so strange to me.  I fast realized most of it is based totally on books , music and film, which of course is not at all shocking considering those are the things that occupy my time the most.

So here, just for the sake of wanting to get this off my chest, are the top five things that influence my ideas about L.A. for no reason other than the fact that I read too much, and listen to too many records.

1) X’s album Los Angeles.

As amazing as The Screamers, The Germs, Circle Jerks, and The Weirdos were, the band from the early days of the LA punk scene that is closest to my heart are undoubtedly X. John Doe and Exene Cervenka’s chance meeting at a poetry reading (as legend has it) should have been a good foreshadowing of the duo’s ambitions beyond rock n’ roll, as their song are gritty descriptions of late 70’s-early 1980’s Los Angeles, that were obviously written from the point of view of people who knew how to write. Their debut album to this day is one of the finest things I have heard, and while the next two albums (Wild Gift and Under the Big Black Sun) are better than just about anything else that would come out in their time, X never sounded better than on the album they wrote this bloodstained love letter to their hometown.

2) John Fante’s Ask the Dust

Depression-era LA was the setting for Fante’s semi-autobiographical novel that is one of the most haunting, down-and-out pieces of literature I’ve ever read. It’s also the only book Fante is somewhat well-known for, which is a shame because the guy was a great writer. Bukowski said of him, “Fante was my god!”

3) Charles Bukowski

Speak of the devil. Love him or hate him, the man lived, breathed, and wrote all about the seedy side of the City of Angels. “Since I was raised in L.A., I’ve always had the geographical and spiritual feeling of being here. I’ve had time to learn this city. I can’t see any other place than L.A.”

4) Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice

If you had to go ahead and guess where Mr. Recluse was hanging out at the start of the 70’s, his latest novel gives you a pretty good idea. Inherent Vice reads like a strange, hazy, postmodern take on a noir novel. Or something like that…

5) Chinatown

Set around the same time as Fante’s Ask the Dust, this somehow might be not only the greatest film Polanski ever directed, but the film that made Jack, “Jack”. Take all that however you want, but this film tells a good deal of the tale of the seedy foundation LA was built upon.

posted by Toby Houle

First published in McGill’s VEG magazine 2009 WINTER issue.  My back-pages editorial.

Charles Bukowski, Accidental Feminist.

“Oh, I just can’t read Bukowski, I find he’s a bit of a chauvinist.” “Bukowski doesn’t write real women: they’re all mothers or whores.[1]” “He’s a misogynist and I don’t like him.”  Ladies and gentlemen, the jury cannot still be out on Charles Bukowski.  He’s not blood sausage.  There is no question about the chuckling raconteur’s sensitivity or talent.  Yet his work is still dismissed or ignored on the ground of gender politics, by apparently ungenerous readers who have probably not read enough of it to see the range of feeling.  I admit that before I had read any, I believed everyone who called him a boor, a simpleton, a middling writer.  How silly I feel now to have listened to all those U3 literary critics.

Let us examine together the most prevalent allegations in this (too-short) survey.

I wonder if any word is bandied about college campuses more with the same misguided and self-satisfied ease as the damning “misogynist”[2]?  Good Ole Oxford defines misogyny as “hatred of women.” And “to hate” as “to feel intense dislike for someone/something.”  In popular parlance, any retrograde male or underfeminized womanizer can be called a “misogynist.”  Empty rhetoric.  It is one thing to be confused and selfish, quite another to act out hatred upon a female.  Men who do that typically end up in jail.  Which is to say that institutional sexism (terrible, and, thankfully, apparently on the wane) must be kept separate from individual sexism, and both must be kept separate from the actual rare cases of pure misogyny[3].

The word chauvinism, which Oxford defines as, “extreme or aggressive support for one’s own country or group,[4]” and in the 70s, came to refer, with the word male, to the belief that traditional gender roles are the best.  Which itself is a symptom of gynophobia, or the fear of women’s innate power.  Otherwise said, male chauvinism was a result of a man’s fear of being considered by women to be unneeded, unattractive, or irrelevant.  The doctrine of hysterical sheep, not healthy wolves.  And none of the aforementioned applies to Ole BillyGoat Himself.

Indeed look here or there, and the women in Bukowski’s fiction are independent, and fully vested with agency.  They know what they want from life, and have learned how to get it.  The entire semi-autobiographical Henry Chinaski saga, a shelf’s worth of stories and novels, is a pseudo-picaresque epic full of such lovers and friends.

If you have any doubts about Bukowski’s ability or his politics, pick up Tales of Ordinary Madness (City Lights re-issue 1983) and read “A .45 to Pay the Rent.” Then read it again, carefully.  It’s got Mag, a self-possessed and smart woman who’s also a fallible human being.  It’s got her convenience-store-robber husband Duke, who says to their daughter, Lala, “that’s what an avocado is: frozen sun. we eat it and walk around feeling warm” (p.2).  Or no, pick the women at random.  Mary, who in “Purple as an Iris” comes to find him for casual sex (p.170). Carol, from the beautiful erotic story “Animal Crackers in My Soup,” described thusly, “her hair was as it was in the sunlight – the red showing through the brown.  It was like fire inside.  She was like fire inside.” (p.211).

From the novel Post Office (BlackSparrow Press 1971), consider the rich and mentally unsettled Joyce, or the lazy and smug writer Fay with whom he has a daughter.  The con artist Mary Lou who picks up Chinaski at the racetrack to  kill and rob him of his winnings (p.138).  The mentally unwell women who taunt and tease the despairing Chinaski as he makes the rounds for the U.S. Postal Service.  From the collection Hot Water Music,(BlackSparrow Press 1983) the executive ladies from “A Couple of Gigoloes,” or the successful con artist Victoria from “Fooling Marie.”  Or how about in “How to Get Published,” when he writes, “No man…can ever call a woman his own.  We never own ‘em, we only borrow ‘em for a little while.” (p. 150).

Bukowski’s real crime is his unflinching honesty.  Which lets his fans see all people, everywhere, in his fiction.  But, to his detractors, provides ammunition for attacking.  Is anyone actually surprised that men like to look at a nice ass[5]?  But what’s fresh is that Bukowski also depicts women who look at and judge and enjoy a well-built man.  AND that they, like all people, have objectives which might involve limiting the whole person of the man they’re chasing so as to satisfy their needs first, even if they pretend, from a position of smug superiority, to be above such objectifying[6].  This, friends, is where he gets himself into trouble.  I don’t think women want to be found out for being as base and hypocritical and domineering as men, albeit perhaps in their own ways.  It would endanger the rhetoric they learn and parrot and enjoy, and the double-talk which has tied up the ears of any man who’s ever been in a relationship.  Of which, it must be said, men have their own variety!  Because we’re all the same!  And tied-up together in the muck.  That’s the cruel joke Bukowski tells a thousand ways.

You see, if Bukowski can be compared to anything else, it would be Arlecchino from the old-school Italian Commedia dell’arte public theatre.  Like the busy trickster, who followed his base urges and turned the world upside down with his wit, Bukowski thumbs his nose at and exposes for satiric contemplation the oblivious pedant Dottore, the miserly hypocrite Pantalone, the blustering authority of Il Capitano[7].  And like the clown, he is most happy with the lusty rascal servant Colombina – who acts of her own will, and in the service of her own wit and desires, just like all the women who fascinate Chinaski – not the calculating and grotesque Signoras of the world.

Robert Kroetsch’s Old Man poems.  The Coyote Myths of American Indians.   Felix the cat of The Twisted Tales.  Huckleyberry Finn.  The Fool in King Lear.  Bugs Bunny.  Jim Carrey’s The Mask.  Sut Lovingood of the old Tennessee tall tales.  Norm MacDonald. Brer Rabbit.  If Odysseus had been a shepherd.  Bukowski can only be comprehended in the company of such wise fools, whose real target is always hypocrisy.

Because, with all the evidence considered: the not-being-a-woman-hater, the tremendous social conscience, the sheer warehouses of characters and events in his fiction, the sparkling humour and imagination; it appears Charles Bukowski could not be defined as something so vague and provincial as a chauvinist, but is in fact one of world history’s great stock of Humanist Writers.  He’s one of America’s great – and hopefully enduring – humourists.  A humanist humourist, who makes me hunger for more of the salt and wine of this short life.

[2] Perhaps “slut.” Or poet.

[3] Which closely resembles misanthropy, of Nietzche’s sort.  And is usually reserved for people with dripping venereal conditions, which indicates that their hate is, in fact, a mix of regret and self-hatred.

[4] After Nicolas Chauvin, veteran of Napoleon’s army, who long retained his admiration for Old Boney.

[5] And those who pretend not to, or won’t admit to it, make the rest of us look bad.

[6] How often have we all heard a woman talk about her plans with a new man, regardless of what he might think about suddenly being a boyfriend?  Or how he might not know he’s about to be humped and dumped?

[7] Whose archetypal natures are rendered in Bukowski’s entire constellation of pedants and poor poets; crippled dangerous perverts; and bosses and policemen.

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Questa raccolta copre quasi completamente la produzione poetica di Bukowski, dall’anno in cui cominciò a scrivere versi fino alla prima metà dei Settanta, gli anni che consacrarono il suo successo internazionale. È perciò ovvio che queste poesie contengano circa vent’anni di vita, di vita alla Bukowski s’intende.

Lo stesso mondo dei suoi romanzi, la stessa dimensione autobiografica. Le sue esperienze tramutate in versi, pura filosofia di vita Chinaski: si arriva a domani, e pure più velocemente, bevendo, scopando, con la felicità che è centrare due cavalli vincenti di seguito. Qualunque lavoro è un surrogato del vivere e se vivere non è possibile, vivere è scrivere, è il contrario della morte. Il contrario di una terrorizzante ed alienante esistenza ordinaria, di una normalità presagio di morte.

Ho sempre creduto le poesie di Bukowski ancor più immediate della sua narrativa, ancor più adatte, rispetto ai romanzi, ad una immersione senza scampo e senza filtri nella sua visione del mondo.

Poesie. (1955-1973), a cura di Vincenzo Mantovani, Mondadori, 1998

In the mid-90s, I decided to get over my stage fright while living in the San Fernando Valley by attending poetry readings. I loved the camaraderie of the poetic gatherings because it was the only place in that area where we didn’t know what was in store for us – comedy, tragedy, or drama. I never met anyone quite as eccentric as the Dead Dog Puppet Lady.

The first time I saw her she walked in with crazy hair, dangly earrings and a squeaky black crate on wheels. It looked like the boxes used to transport musical equipment. She took out these incredibly realistic Rottweilers, stuck her hands up their backs and they performed her poetry for her.

She had conversations with the dogs like a ventriloquist but it wasn’t a ventriloquism act because her lips moved the entire time. So I wasn’t sure exactly what category to put her into: Poet? Puppeteer? Performance Artist? Possibly a Patient?

As I sat transfixed, a fellow poet leaned over and said, “Those are her real dogs.”

“What?” I said in a stage whisper.

“Yeah,” he stage-whispered back, “when her dogs died she took them to a taxidermist and had them stuffed.”

After that I couldn’t hear a poem she said. Or what her dogs barked. I mean, she had a litter, not just one.

She came to readings every weekend always late. We cringed whenever we heard those wheels scratching on the sidewalk; like nails on a chalkboard but not quite as soothing.

The rest of us came with our Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Charles Bukowski-type poems, filled with angst and mad at the world type of poems. Her poetry was just too cute and trite to fit in.

I thought that a gathering of kids might better suit her. But I feared children asking her where she got the puppets. Imagine her saying, “Well, these were all my dogs at one time. When they died and went to doggie heaven, I had them stuffed and made into puppets.”

There’d be more crying and gnashing of teeth than the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem.

you may not believe it
but there are people
who go through life with
very little
friction of distress.
they dress well, sleep well.
they are contented with
their family
life.
they are undisturbed
and often feel
very good.
and when they die
it is an easy death, usually in their
sleep.

you may not believe
it
but such people do
exist.

but i am not one of
them.
oh no, I am not one of them,
I am not even near
to being
one of
them.
but they
are there

and I am
here.