Henry Charles
Bukowski, the quintessential bard of the barroom and the brothel, a direct descendant
of the Romantic visionaries who worshiped at the altar of personal
excess, violence and madness was born 78 years ago today..In my eyes he was simply a genius, of understated emotion. I owe him a lot of debt and
gratitude, his writing still continues to influence, and he is one of the main reasons I attempt
to write myself. This post inspired by him are simply some old words of mine regurgitated.
Born in Andernach, Germany in 1926,as Heinrich Karl Bukowski, ,his father was a member of the U.S Army that remained in Germany, after WW1, and his mother bought him to the United States at the age of two, Bukowski wasa slight child with a poor complexion,who was often bullied by his peers and beaten by his father,who believed in a heavy hand when correcting his child's faults. He began writing at a young
age, and was first published in the 1940's, he would spend the next 20
years,working in a series of menial jobs, while immersing himself in
the world of booze and hard living. His life perhaps, is not one you would want to emulate, but his insistence on being himself , and then using that to his advantage is a quality worth borrowing.
At the age of 49, after years of heavy drinking and debauchery, he struck a deal with Black Sparrow Press that allowed him to quit a work ethic that he was not comfortable with, in a post office, to focus full time on his writing. The result was over 30 poetry collections, 6 novels and two feature films based on his life and works, making him one of the most prolific writers of the 20th Century.
At the age of 49, after years of heavy drinking and debauchery, he struck a deal with Black Sparrow Press that allowed him to quit a work ethic that he was not comfortable with, in a post office, to focus full time on his writing. The result was over 30 poetry collections, 6 novels and two feature films based on his life and works, making him one of the most prolific writers of the 20th Century.
In
novels and short-story collections like "Notes of a Dirty Old Man"
(1969), "Post Office" (1971), "Factotum" (1975) and "Ham on Rye" (1982),
Bukowski relied on an alter ego named Henry Chinaski, a
down-and-out writer with a fierce dedication to women, drink, gambling
and failure.
Mr.
Bukowski wrote the screenplay for Barbet Schroeder's "Barfly," in which
Mickey Rourke portrayed the poet in his younger days.
His work was marked by an emphasis on the ordinary lives of poor Americans, the act of writing, alcohol, relationships, failure, depression, gambling, life and death, and drinking and more drinking. He was a poet who wrote without pretence, privilege or sheen, embracing what so many of us try to avoid. He was heavily influenced by the geography and atmosphere of his home city of Los Angeles, and all the senses that he witnessed and devoured. He once said in a magazine interview that he began drinking at 13 to dull the pain of being beaten continually by his father
He lived alongside his words, alongside the margins of societies edge, with the down and outs, the wrecked, the outsiders, the hopelessly abandoned, the walking wounded. Beyond the literary schools, his work emerged to break all traditional rules, against all that is conventional, beautifully sinful, uncompromising, but never hypocritically righteous, releasing poetry of such passion that I believe still matters today. Utilising free verse and spontanaeity, despite the idolation that was bestowed upon him, he joined no clichés, refusing acceptance into any literary community, in true essence of his rebellious spirit.
Blunt and outspoken,he was not concerned with anything beyond what he was, and he didn't need you to agree with him, he saw the ugliness of the earth, and was not afraid to express his ways of seeing. Remembered because of the rawness and roughness and the many manifestations of ugliness that he saw in life, I try not to forget, the beauty and tenderness that he shared too. In simple language, he simply used the inner rhythm of his voice, to release what I have realised to be a form of magic, no cleverness or pretence disguised, just a raw undiluted life affirming truth , filled with his brutal honesty.
He died in San Pedro, California on March 29, 1994 at the age of seventy-three, shortly after completing his last novel, Pulp, but his spirit and his words of pain and laughter live on, speaking a universal truth. His posthumous work has been almost as prolific as the work published in his lifetime, at least 24 volumes of his poetry, nonfiction has been published since his death alone,and no one can assume there are more works out there waiting to see the light.
Going against the grain is a battle, and it's not an easy one to win, in the end we all face death,few have captured the complex dilemma than he did, he once said " We're all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't. We are terrorised and flattened by trivialities, we are eating up by nothing "So today I raise a sweet cold glass of beer to my lips in his honor, cheers Mr Bukowski. Happy birthday.
" There's nothing to mourn about death any more than there is to morn about the growing of a flower. What is terrible is not death but the lives people live or don't live up until their death. They don't honor their own lives. They shit them away. Dumb fuckers. They concentrate too much on fucking , movies, family fucking. Their minds are full of cotton. They swallow God without thinking. Soon they forget how to think, they let others think for them. Their brains are stuffed with cotton. Thy look ugly, they talk ugly, they walk ugly. Play them the great music of the centuries and they can't hear it, Most people;s deaths are a sham. There's nothing left to die" - Charles Bukowski
His work was marked by an emphasis on the ordinary lives of poor Americans, the act of writing, alcohol, relationships, failure, depression, gambling, life and death, and drinking and more drinking. He was a poet who wrote without pretence, privilege or sheen, embracing what so many of us try to avoid. He was heavily influenced by the geography and atmosphere of his home city of Los Angeles, and all the senses that he witnessed and devoured. He once said in a magazine interview that he began drinking at 13 to dull the pain of being beaten continually by his father
He lived alongside his words, alongside the margins of societies edge, with the down and outs, the wrecked, the outsiders, the hopelessly abandoned, the walking wounded. Beyond the literary schools, his work emerged to break all traditional rules, against all that is conventional, beautifully sinful, uncompromising, but never hypocritically righteous, releasing poetry of such passion that I believe still matters today. Utilising free verse and spontanaeity, despite the idolation that was bestowed upon him, he joined no clichés, refusing acceptance into any literary community, in true essence of his rebellious spirit.
Blunt and outspoken,he was not concerned with anything beyond what he was, and he didn't need you to agree with him, he saw the ugliness of the earth, and was not afraid to express his ways of seeing. Remembered because of the rawness and roughness and the many manifestations of ugliness that he saw in life, I try not to forget, the beauty and tenderness that he shared too. In simple language, he simply used the inner rhythm of his voice, to release what I have realised to be a form of magic, no cleverness or pretence disguised, just a raw undiluted life affirming truth , filled with his brutal honesty.
He died in San Pedro, California on March 29, 1994 at the age of seventy-three, shortly after completing his last novel, Pulp, but his spirit and his words of pain and laughter live on, speaking a universal truth. His posthumous work has been almost as prolific as the work published in his lifetime, at least 24 volumes of his poetry, nonfiction has been published since his death alone,and no one can assume there are more works out there waiting to see the light.
Going against the grain is a battle, and it's not an easy one to win, in the end we all face death,few have captured the complex dilemma than he did, he once said " We're all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't. We are terrorised and flattened by trivialities, we are eating up by nothing "So today I raise a sweet cold glass of beer to my lips in his honor, cheers Mr Bukowski. Happy birthday.
" There's nothing to mourn about death any more than there is to morn about the growing of a flower. What is terrible is not death but the lives people live or don't live up until their death. They don't honor their own lives. They shit them away. Dumb fuckers. They concentrate too much on fucking , movies, family fucking. Their minds are full of cotton. They swallow God without thinking. Soon they forget how to think, they let others think for them. Their brains are stuffed with cotton. Thy look ugly, they talk ugly, they walk ugly. Play them the great music of the centuries and they can't hear it, Most people;s deaths are a sham. There's nothing left to die" - Charles Bukowski
Charles Bukowski - Death
Look he said
You’ve got spider traps all along this wall
It’s fascinating
He was outside my door peering at the stucco wall
I said come on in
He said no way and he got a twig and found some ants
And he said
Bukowski I’m going to make this ant run the gauntlet
The phone rang and I answered the phone
And while I was talking and listening he said
Bukowski he said he got away from the first spider
Now the second one is out and he’s got the ant by the rear legs
Listen Linda I said
I’ve got a visitor and also my toilets stopped and the shit is coming up through the tub
Bukowski he said
Now the spider is throwing a net over him
He’s weaving around and around
Now he’s moving in Bukowski
Now he’s got him
DEATH!
The landlord came in
It will take a little while to clear it up he said
He was talking about the shit
Alright I said
Linda I said
Shit and death is everywhere
I’ll call you back she said
Now I’ve got a spider said my visitor
And I’m giving him to the ants
I walked outside
For Christ’s sake kid will you stop playing this spider ant game
Lets go for a ride
the landlord gets very nervous when he plays with the plumbing
Look he said
The ants are chopping the spider’s legs off one by one
Good strategy I said
let’s go
We drove down to norms and had breakfast
My friend commented continually on humanity
He didn’t think they were much
I didn’t argue
My friend was a great admirer of earnest Hemmingway
I drove him to Hollywood and Normandy and let him out
When I got back the shit was still in the tub
I didn’t want to take a bath anyway
