This is a diverse compilation of poetry, memoirs, stories, interviews,
essays and black & white portraits about the life and work of the American
writer Charles Bukowski who died in Los Angeles almost twenty years ago. Close
to one hundred pages of material has previously appeared in small press
publications such as Lummox Press.
In her short introduction, editor Melanie Villines makes
clear the intention of this book: “The point of this collection is to put our
collective thoughts, feelings, and impressions together, share our stories, our
poems, our portraits, and join in our joint missing of Bukowski. Now whenever
we feel the pang of Buk’s absence, we can pick up this book and connect with
others who feel the same way.”
Find Villines’ introduction and a list of the contributors
here:
BUKOWSKI: An Anthology of Poetry & Prose is divided into
eleven loosely themed chapters: Hank & Me, First Person, The Poet, The
Artist, Collecting, Spirits, The Track, Women, Readings, The Typer and Don’t
Try.
The strongest work includes poetry by Harry Calhoun, A.D. Winans,
S.A Griffin, Henry Denander, Adrian Manning, Dirk Velvet and the article ‘Carl
Weissner: One Hell of an Amazing Human’ from Joan Gannij’s forthcoming book My Real Life Encounters with Charles
Bukowski and Henry Miller: Mythical Dirty Old Men of the Printed Page. Also
impressive is Wendy Rainey’s interview with Gerald Locklin about his thoughts
on Bukowski, including his films and posthumous books- although it seemed to
end prematurely.
Personally, I enjoyed reading best David Stephen Calonne’s excellent extended essay ‘On Some Early Bukowski Poems: The Genius Emerges.’ Through a close reading of a “remarkable range” of Bukowski’s early poems, Calonne forcefully establishes what he set out to do. As he states in his conclusion, “I hope I have demonstrated in this essay that Bukowski- through both his natural literary talent as well as the impact of his early traumata, mid-life health crisis and ceaseless attentive reading of world literature (Catullus, Li Po, Tu Fu, Celine, Artaud, Dostoyevsky, Gorky, Turgenev, Saroyan, Fante, Heminway among many others) – transformed himself into a great writer.”
Personally, I enjoyed reading best David Stephen Calonne’s excellent extended essay ‘On Some Early Bukowski Poems: The Genius Emerges.’ Through a close reading of a “remarkable range” of Bukowski’s early poems, Calonne forcefully establishes what he set out to do. As he states in his conclusion, “I hope I have demonstrated in this essay that Bukowski- through both his natural literary talent as well as the impact of his early traumata, mid-life health crisis and ceaseless attentive reading of world literature (Catullus, Li Po, Tu Fu, Celine, Artaud, Dostoyevsky, Gorky, Turgenev, Saroyan, Fante, Heminway among many others) – transformed himself into a great writer.”
There are a couple of satirical digs at Bukowski, such as
Jared Carney’s ‘Not Called Hank’ but usually the writers are huge fans and keep
their gloves off him. Even Rene Diedrich’s poem ‘Bukowski Was an Asshole’ turns
into a tribute. Perhaps the most damaging piece to Bukowski’s character is
Karen Finley’s memoir ‘An Affair to Remember.’ Bukowski is represented as a
vain and indifferent partner and when Finley tells him she is pregnant, he
tells her to get an abortion because he believes it is Richard Brautigan’s kid.
Bukowski was suspicious of people who claimed they knew him
and wrote David Reeve in 1991: “Lots of women claimed to have fucked me. Well,
lots of them have. But those who have don’t talk about it much. I’m just not
that good. Not many sweaty horse fucks in my bag. I could go on and on. People
who claim to be my friends. People who claim they have gotten drunk with me.
People who claim they have beaten the shit out of me. Well, there are plenty of
those, but those who really have done it know that it’s no great thing.”
I wonder what Bukowski would think of this re-imagining of
his corpse? I guess he’d be wryly amused but he’d be too busy recycling his own shit to read it.
