'Henry Charles Bukowski' (
August 16,
1920 –
March 9,
1994) was an influential
Los Angeles poet and
novelist. Bukowski's writing was heavily influenced by the geography and atmosphere of his home city of Los Angeles. He is often mentioned as an influence by contemporary authors, and his style is frequently imitated. A prolific author, Bukowski wrote thousands of poems, hundreds of short-stories, and six novels, eventually having more than fifty books in print.
Life
Early Years
Charles Bukowski was born in
Andernach,
Germany, in 1920 as Heinrich Karl Bukowski. His mother Katharina Fett, a native German, met his father, a
Polish American serviceman, after the end of
World War I. Coincidentally, Bukowski's paternal grandfather had also been born in Germany.
[1] Bukowski was fond of claiming that he had been born out of
wedlock, but Andernach records show that his parents were in fact married a month prior to his birth.
[2]
After the collapse of the German economy following WWI, the family moved to
Baltimore in 1923. To sound more American, Bukowski's parents began calling him "Henry" and altered the pronunciation of their last name from ''Buk-ov-ski'' to ''Buk-cow-ski''. After saving money, the family moved to
suburban Los Angeles in 1926, where Bukowski's father's family lived.
[2] During Bukowski's childhood, his father was often unemployed, and according to Bukowski, verbally and physically abusive (as detailed in his novel,
Ham on Rye). During his youth Bukowski suffered from extreme
acne and
shyness.
[4] After graduating from
Los Angeles High School, Bukowski attended
Los Angeles City College for two years, taking courses in art, journalism and literature.
Early Writing
At 24, Bukowski's short-story "Aftermath of a Lengthy Rejection Slip" was published in
Story Magazine. Two years later, another short-story, "20 Tanks From Kasseldown," was published in Portfolio III's broadside-collection. Bukowski grew disillusioned with the publication process and quit writing for almost a decade. During part of this period he went on living in Los Angeles, but also spent some time roaming around the
United States, working odd jobs and staying in cheap rooming houses. In the early 1950s Bukowski took a job as a letter-carrier with the
United States Postal Service in Los Angeles, but quit after less than three years.
In 1955 he was hospitalized with a bleeding ulcer that was nearly fatal. When he left the hospital, he began to write poetry. In 1957, he married writer and poet
Barbara Frye, but they divorced in 1959. Frye insisted that their separation had nothing to do with literature, though she often doubted his skill as a poet. Following the divorce, Bukowski resumed drinking and continued to write poetry.
Bukowski at home in San Pedro in 1990, with writers Mary Ann Swissler and Mat Gleason
1960s
By 1960 he had returned to the post office in Los Angeles, where he continued to work as a clerk for over a decade. In 1964, a daughter, Marina Louise Bukowski, was born to Bukowski and his then live-in girlfriend
Frances Smith. Bukowski lived in
Tucson briefly where he befriended
Jon Webb and
Gypsy Lou, two people who would be influential in getting Bukowski's work widely published.
The Webbs published
The Outsider literary magazine and featured some of Bukowski's poetry. Under the
Loujon Press, they published Bukowski's
It Catches my Heart In Its Hand (1963), and
A Crucifix in a Deathhand, in 1965. Jon Webb bankrolled his printing ventures with his Vegas winnings. It was at this point that Bukowski and
Franz Douskey began their friendship. They argued and often got into fights. Douskey was a friend of the Webbs, and was often a guest at their small E. Elm Street house that also served as a publishing venue. The Webbs, Bukowski and Douskey spent time together in New Orleans, where Gypsy Lou eventually returned after the passing of Jon Webb.
Beginning in 1967, Bukowski wrote the column "Notes of A Dirty Old Man" for Los Angeles' ''Open City''
underground newspaper. When ''Open City'' was shut down in 1969, the column was picked up by the ''
Los Angeles Free Press''. In 1969, Bukowski and his friend
Neeli Cherkovski launched their own mimeographed literary magazine, '''
Laugh Literary and Man the Humping Guns'''. They produced three issues over the next two years.
Black Sparrow Years
In 1969, after being promised a monthly stipend of $100 "for life" from
Black Sparrow Press publisher John Martin, Bukowski quit his job at the post-office to make writing his full-time career. He was then 49 years old. As he explained in a letter at the time, "I have one of two choices -- stay in the post office and go crazy ... or stay out here and play at writer and starve. I have decided to starve."
[1] Less than one month after leaving the postal service, he finished his first novel, titled ''
Post Office''. As a measure of respect for Martin's financial support and faith in a then relatively unknown writer, Bukowski published almost all of his subsequent work with Black Sparrow. In 1976, Bukowski met Linda Lee Beighle, a health-food restaurant owner. Two years later, the couple moved from the East Hollywood area, where Bukowski had lived for most of his life, to the harborside community of
San Pedro,
[5] the southernmost district of the City of Los Angeles. Bukowski and Beighle were married by
Manly Palmer Hall in 1985. Linda Lee Beighle is referred to as "Sara" in Bukowski's novels ''
Women'' and ''
Hollywood''.
Bukowski died of
leukemia on March 9th, 1994 in
San Pedro, California, at the age of 73, shortly after completing his last novel "Pulp". His funeral rites were conducted by Buddhist monks. His gravestone reads: "Don't Try".
Work
Bukowski published extensively in small literary magazines and with small presses beginning in the late 1950s and continuing on through the early 1990s, with the poems and stories being later republished by
Black Sparrow Press (now
HarperCollins/ECCO) as collected volumes of his work.
Bukowski acknowledged
Anton Chekhov,
James Thurber,
Franz Kafka,
Knut Hamsun,
Ernest Hemingway,
John Fante,
Louis-Ferdinand Céline,
Robinson Jeffers,
Fyodor Dostoyevsky,
D.H. Lawrence, and others as influences, and often spoke of Los Angeles as his favorite subject. In a 1974 interview he said, "You live in a town all your life, and you get to know every bitch on the street corner and half of them you have already messed around with. You've got the layout of the whole land. You have a picture of where you are. ... 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."
[2]
One critic has described Bukowski's fiction as a "detailed depiction of a certain taboo male fantasy: the uninhibited bachelor, slobby, anti-social, and utterly free."
[3] Since his death, in 1994, Bukowski has been the subject of a number of critical articles and books about both his life and writings. Despite the fact that he has become an icon and heroic role-model for many of the disaffected, his work has received relatively little attention from academic critics. ECCO continues to release new collections of his poetry, culled from the thousands of works published in small literary magazines. According to ECCO the
2007 release ''The People Look Like Flowers At Last'' will be his final
posthumous release as now all his once-unpublished work has been published
[4]. ''Bukowski: Born Into This'', a film documenting the author's life, was released in 2004.
In June 2006, Bukowski's literary archive was donated by his widow, Linda Lee Bukowski, to the
Huntington Library, in San Marino, CA. Copies of all editions of his work published by the Black Sparrow Press are held at Western Michigan University, which purchased the archive of the publishing house after its closure in 2003.
In popular culture
Music
Bad Radio, one of
Eddie Vedder's earliest bands, has a song called "I'm Alive (How's That)" (not to be confused
★ at all
★ with
Alive, from the album
Ten.)
In it, Eddie raps "I like to read Bukowski buck naked, I like intellectual conversation".
Modest Mouse produced a song titled "Bukowski" in their album ''
Good News for People Who Love Bad News''. Modest Mouse also released a track titled "Long Distance Drunk", on their ''
Lonesome Crowded West'' CD, which shares its name with a short story in the book ''Hot Water Music''
The band
Hot Water Music is named after one of Bukowski's books.
The band
Lydia Vance is named after a character in Bukowski's book, ''
Women''.
The band The Volta Sound has a song "Henri Chinaski".
Punk band
A Radio With Guts is named after a Bukowski poem.
The British rapper
Jehst name-checks Bukowski in his track "Alcoholic Author".
The album ''
War All The Time'' by
Thursday shares its title with a Bukowski volume.
Senses Fail produced an album titled ''Let It Enfold You'', from the title of one of Bukowski's works.
A Bukowski quote appears in the booklet for the
Propagandhi album ''Potemkin City Limits''.
The post-punk group
The Fall wrote a song called "Dr. Buck's Letter," thought to be a tribute to Bukowski.
[5]
On the song "Got up this morning" from his 2007 album ''
Human the Death Dance'', rapper
Sage Francis muses "She dangled that carrot, then asked me, 'What would Bukowski do?' / Don't go there, he'd make you his Mom / And then completely lie about it in a book later on".
He is mentioned in the
Red Hot Chili Peppers song "
Mellowship Slinky in B Major" on the album ''
Blood Sugar Sex Magik''.
He is also referenced in the
Razorlight song "In the City" from the album ''
Up All Night'', the
311 song "Feels So Good" on the album ''
Music'' as well as "Stealing Happy Hours" on ''
Transistor'' and "Salsa" on ''
Grassroots'', and by UK
hiphop artist
Jehst on the track "Alcoholic Author" from his
2001 album ''
Return of the Drifter''. He is name checked in the titular song on
The Good Life's ''
Album of the Year''. He is also mentioned in the
Jon Bon Jovi song "It's Just Me" on his solo album ''
Destination Anywhere'' and in the
Anthrax song "Fueled" from the album ''
Stomp 442''.
Bukowski's work has also been used in the music of
Tom Waits,
The Ataris,
Jawbreaker,
Sage Francis,
U2, and
Buck 65.
Creator and frontman for
The Ataris,
Kris Roe cites Bukowski as one of his greatest influences.
Gary McDaniel former bassist of
Black Flag went by the stage name
Chuck Dukowski, a homage to Bukowski.
The band
Chiodos named their 2007 album ''
Bone Palace Ballet'' after Bukowski's posthumous book of poems of the same name. Their song "Teeth the Size of Piano Keys" is based after his poem "I'm In Love."
Mike Williams, vocalist for the New Orleans band
Eyehategod has cited the works of Bukowski as one of the primary influences in his writing. Williams named the band's demo tape and a subsequent song after the title of a poem by Bukowski called "Lack of Almost Everything". While not being a direct copy of the works of Bukowski, his influence is undoubtedly felt in Williams' book of poetry and prose titled ''Cancer As A Social Activity''.
Folk/country singer/songwriter Tom Russll released ''Hotwalker'', an album of spoken word with Bukowski as one of the main focuses.
Frontman Al Jourgensen of the industrial-metal band, Ministry, has a Bukowski tattoo.
British rock band
The Cult named their eighth record ''
Born Into This''.
The early
Anthony Green band,
Audience of One, has a song on their album ''
I Remember When This All Meant Something'' entitled "Flower, Fist, and Bestial Wall".
The band
Amber Pacific named their album "
The Possibility and the Promise" after a quote from
Ham On Rye
Bukowski inspired song "To All My Friends" is track 10 on Adam Snyder's "Across The Pond" [hti 2001]
The English band The Dogs D'Amour realeased a song called Bullet Proof Poet about Bukowski on their 1989 EP Graveyard of Empty Bottles.
Folk/songwriter
Red Label Catharsis bears from a strong Bukowski influence, working for the Postal Service for several years where he was first introduced to Bukowski, has written music under the poem "Have You Ever Been With a Panther?" and frequently performs his song with the title "All That Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through The Fire" based on the book or poetry of the same title
The song "Barfly" by live electronica band
The Disco Biscuits is inspired by Bukowski's life. The chorus is "Cause I'm the Barfly. I like to drink, that's what I do."
Film and television
Henry Charles Bukowski and his works have been the subject of several films, such as his own autobiographical screenplay for the 1987 film ''
Barfly.'' In the documentary, ''Bukowski: Born Into This'' Henry offers his opinion that the Mickey Rourke portrayal of him in ''
Barfly'' was "misdone". 2005 saw the release of the movie ''
Factotum'' starring
Matt Dillon; the movie is based on the
novel of the same name, which centers on
Henry Chinaski, the fictional alter-ego of Bukowski, as he struggles from one job to the next, all the while pursuing his true interests: alcohol, women and writing. This latter film appears to be a second attempt at verisimilitude in depicting a portion of his life even though it makes no pretense of occurring in the appropriate decade. Whereas in ''
Barfly'' the focus is more on women, drinking and bare-knuckle boxing, in ''
Factotum'' it is the writing that receives greater emphasis.
In February 2007 it was announced that
Gabor Csupo will be producing ''How the Dead Love'', an animated film that will use four of Bukowski's short stories. There are rumors that
Johnny Depp will voice this film's main character and will also produce the film with Csupo via Depp's production company,
Infinitum Nihil.
Bukowski is also mentioned in a scene in the movie ''
Glory Daze'', starring
Ben Affleck.
He was mentioned in Adult Swim, as one of their poet choices.
He is mentioned in
Peep Show; while Jeremy is buying items from a supermarket, drunk, he claims he must look like Bukowski.
He is mentioned by Paul Giamatti as the character Miles in Alexander Payne's "Sideways" (2004).
Literature
Lily Burana references Bukowski ("You're in Bukowski country") in her 2001 novel, ''Strip City: A Stripper's Farewell Journey Across America''.
Miscellaneous
Henry Chinaski or 'Hank' is the protagonist of five novels by Charles Bukowski, as well as many short stories and poems. He is a consummate anti-hero: a misanthropic alcoholic who drifts from job to job and woman to woman. He is also an autobiographical character; like Bukowski, Chinaski grows up poor; has liaisons with mostly older women and spends many years in a post office job he hates.
A pair of
taverns bearing his name opened in
Boston and
Cambridge, Massachusetts, some three years after his death, decorated in paintings and quotations from Bukowski and others. It hosts a Dead Author's Club of mugs engraved with a patron's favorite dead author. There was also some sort of pseudo/quasi/genuinely bohemian bar type place in Sheffield, England, named simply 'Bukowski's'. It shut a few years ago and is now a Thai restaurant which, while pleasant enough, doesn't quite have the same vibe. Bukowski's was a successful bar in Vancouver, BC, in the Commercial Drive area for years before being sold.
Bibliography
Criticism and biographies
★ ''
Hugh Fox'' - ''Charles Bukowski A Critical and Bibliographical Study - 1969''
★ ''
Jory Sherman'' - ''Bukowski: Friendship, Fame & Bestial Myth - 1981''
★ ''
Neeli Cherkowski'' - ''Bukowski - A Life - 1991''
★ ''
Russell Harrison'' - ''Against The American Dream - 1994''
★ ''
Amber O'Neil'' - ''Blowing My Hero - 1995''
★ ''
Gerald Locklin'' - ''Charles Bukowski: A Sure Bet - 1996''
★ ''
Steve Richmond'' - ''Spinning Off Bukowski - 1996''
★ ''
A.D. Winans'' - ''The Charles Bukowski/Second Coming Years - 1996''
★ ''
Gay Brewer'' - ''Charles Bukowski, Twayne's United States Authors Series - 1997''
★ ''
Jim Christy'' - ''The Buk Book - 1997''
★ ''
John Thomas'' - ''Bukowski In The Bathtub - 1997''
★ ''
Ann Menebroker'' - ''Surviving Bukowski - 1998''
★ ''
Carlos Polimeni'' - ''Bukowski For Beginners - 1998''
★ ''
Howard Sounes'' - ''Charles Bukowski. Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life - 1998''
★ ''
Jean-Francois Duval'' - ''Bukowski and The Beats - 2000''
★ ''
Gundolf S. Freyermuth'' - ''That's it. - 2000''
★ ''
Daniel Weizmann (editor)'' - ''Drinking with Bukowski - Recollections of the Poet Laureate of Skid Row - 2000''
★ ''
Aubrey Malone'' - ''the hunchback of east Hollywood - 2003''
★ ''
Jon Edgar Webb Jr.'' - ''Jon, Lou, Bukowski and Me - 2003''
★ ''
Ben Pleasants'' - ''Visceral Bukowski - 2004''
★ ''
Michael Gray Baughan'' - ''Charles Bukowski - 2004''
★ ''
Enrico Francheschini'' - ''I'm Bukowski, and then? - 2005''
★ ''
Barry Miles'' - ''Charles Bukowski - 2005''
★ ''
Tom Russell'' - ''Tough Company - 2005'' .
★ ''
David Charlson'' - ''Charles Bukowski: Autobiographer, Gender Critic, Iconoclast - 2005''
★ ''
Linda King'' - ''Loving and Hating Charles Bukowski - 2006''
References
★ An Introduction to Charles Bukowski
[6]
★ ''The Hunchback of East Hollywood : A Biography of Charles Bukowski'' by Aubrey Malone (Critical Vision, 2003)
★ ''Charles Bukowski: Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life'' by Howard Sounes (Grove Press, 1999)
★ Aaron Krumhansl - ''A Descriptive Bibliography of the Primary Publications of Charles Bukowski'' (Black Sparrow Press, 1999)
★ Sanford Dorbin - ''A Bibliography of Charles Bukowski'' (Black Sparrow Press, 1969)
★ University of Southern California Department of Special Collections
Notes
1. Miles, Barry. Charles Bukowski.
2. Sounes, Howard. Charles Bukowski: Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life, p. 8
3. Sounes, Howard. Charles Bukowski: Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life, p. 8
4. http://www.wisegeek.com/who-is-charles-bukowski.htm
5. Ciotti, Paul. (March 22, 1987) Los Angeles Times ''Bukowski: He's written more than 40 books, and in Europe he's treated like a rock star. He has dined with Norman Mailer and goes to the race track with Sean Penn. Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway are starring in a movie based on his life. At 66, poet Charles Bukowski is suddenly in vogue.'' Section: Los Angeles Times Magazine; Page 12.
6. An Introduction to Charles Bukowski
Modest Mouse, on their album "Good News For People Who Love Bad News" (2004), wrote a song entitled "Bukowski," which criticizes God for letting bad things happen to good people.
External links
★
A memorial drinking club out of San Francisco
★
Bukday birthday celebration in Los Angeles, August 15-19 2007
★
Haunts of a Dirty Old Man: Charles Bukowski's Los Angeles bus tour
★
Extensive online database of Bukowski's work
★
Bukowski discussion forum
★
Bukowski Tribute site
★
Love Is A Dog From Hell
★
An Introduction to Charles Bukowski
★
The Beat Page on Charles Bukowski
★
These Words I Write Keep Me From Total Madness
★
The Buk - A Bukowski overview
★
Blue Neon Alley - Charles Bukowski directory
★
Three Charles Bukowski Poems 'Remixed' by Hyperlexic
★
Lune Froide on IMDB
★
Charles Bukowski's Gravesite
★
Modern American Poetry Collection − Ball State University Archives and Special Collections Research Center
★
Black Sparrow Press Collection − Western Michigan University Special Collections
★
The Italian Community − The Italian community
★
Peanuts, by Charles Bukowsi - A parody of the
Peanuts, as if written by Charles Bukowski
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