8/8/2023 0 Comments Bukowski author![]() ![]() Yet even within such a crushing and closely argued demolition, he quotes and praises a fine poem. Bukowski identifies instances of derivativeness and near plagiarism. Bukowski provides many examples of terrible self-conscious verse (“the strum of lost evening”, “sob chill rumor of your sinking flesh”, “grief stands like squad of riflemen”, etc.) which will leave readers wincing. Bukowski cooled on Corrington’s craft and conduct, attributing highfalutin diction and lifeless conjunctions in Corrington’s verse to his university education and work as a professor of English. The pair had been friends and written each other many letters. The most brutal of reviews is the verdict on a book of poems by John William Corrington. Due to that, when Bukowski trained his critical gaze on writing and found it wanting his verdicts were all the more brutal. No matter how rebarbative and brusque he could be generally, when encountering specific poems Bukowski would be as sensitive and responsive as one could wish for in an intelligent commentator. Doug Blazek, Al Masarik and Al Purdy all get words of praise of varying intensity. Yet Bukowski is nothing if not honest and we see that in his warm and generous introductions to his fellow poet Steve Richmond’s poem collections. ![]() Reading the dregs that were submitted for publication led him to make sweeping public statements and the largely dismiss American verse of the era. He claimed that the poor quality of American verse published at the time did not come close to matching the awfulness of the verse not published. In the 1960s and 1970s Bukowski read a large amount of verse in connection with his work on little magazines. This was perhaps partly professional jealousy and ego, but he had reasons to be sceptical. He did not tend to publicly praise contemporary poets. Writers Bukowski expressly admired included Dostoevsky, Gorky, Céline, Li Po, Hamsun, John Fante, early Hemingway, early Saroyan. ![]() I have been pulling for Hemingway to hit one out of the lot for a long time now Hemingway knows his drinks and his drunks and the bar scene is good and the conversation is a little bit on-stage but not bad. This is amply apparent in a very ambivalent review of the posthumously published Islands in the Stream. But he was prepared to admit Hemingway’s greatness and conceded his jealous rivalry with the giant of American Twentieth Century literature. For example, he said he greatly admired Hemingway when he was younger but had cooled towards Hemingway because his writing lacked humour. He formed and expressed strong opinions but he was prepared to qualify. Despite not finishing his college education he was familiar with the classics (verse, prose and drama) and the early Moderns, as well as pulp writing, Chinese poetry and a host of other writers recent and ancient. He frequented libraries and read voraciously. There are also a few unpublished items.Ĭharles Bukowski often thought about what writing was good for (and not) and which writers made it (and which did not). In this new collection of stories, essays, reviews, statements and interviews (compiled and introduced by Bukowski expert David Calonne) we read Bukowski meditating on writing: the experience of writing, how he judged writers, his writing process and why one could (and should) write. Interviewer: What do you hold responsible for your success?īukowski: A brutal childhood, alcohol, half a dozen rotten jobs, a dozen rotten women, plus an overpowering fear of everything, plus a strange arrival of luck and bravery in sub-zero situations. ![]()
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