Time Magazine once called Charles Bukowski a “laureate of
American lowlife”, someone able to invite the whole world along on a journey
into the dark alleyways of urban America. He certainly is a true cult writer
with millions of fans around the world; who’s life has been immortalised in
movies and books.
Bukowski was a hard-working writer, publishing a large
number of poetry collections, novels, short-stories and screenplays – you can
find the whole impressive list on his Wikipedia entry. Yet the machismo display
of sex, alcohol abuse and violence which is presented in his work seems to have
prevent the scholarly attention which some of his fellow Black Sparrow Press
poets have received.
In his introduction to the five poems featured in the
anthology Paul Hoover explains that Bukowski somehow occupies a particular
position within the poetry scene at the time: “Although his work is reminiscent
of Beat poetry in its confessionalism, existential bleakness, and use of
American speech, Bukowski implicitly rejects visionary and shamanistic poetics
in favour of a gritty roominghouse lyricism.”
~ - ~
Comparing Notes
(w/ Mr B)
The blood
-shot eyes
and scabbed elbows revealing
soft tissue
heavy breath over
the sudden
push
broken nails
and the long blonde
curls on the bathroom floor
dirty tiling
three hundred pages
into Simone de
Beauvoire
and he still thinks
mainly
about his size
in the world
and he still keeps
mainly
note of his size
in a world
that no longer exists
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