Guy came over and got drunk with me last night. He wants to buy the movie options on South of No North. I drank his booze and then turned him over to Martin. The other guy just renewed his option on Erections and the guy who has Post Office says he has high hopes. If just one of these turns into a movie I’m going to buy a new pair of shoes.
Like you know: stay in the trenches and lob some out. I think we’re wearing those sons of bitches out. ya.
[To the Editors of The L.A. Free Press]
November 15, 1974
Hello editors:
Regarding the Lynne Bronstein letter of Nov. 15 about my story of Nov. one:
1. The story was about pretentiousness in art. The fact that the pretender had female organs had nothing to do with the story in total. That any female made to look unfavorable in a story must be construed as a denunciation of the female as female is just so much guava. The right of the creator to depict characters any way he must remains inviolate—whether those characters are female, black, brown, Indian, Chicano, white, male, Communist, homosexual, Republican, peg-legged, mongolian and/or ?
2. The story was a take-off on an interview with an established female poet in a recent issue of Poetry Now. Since I have been interviewed for a future issue of the same journal and for future editions of Creem and Rolling Stone, my detractors will get their chance to see how I hold or fail under similar conditions.
3. When the narrator lets us know that he has Janice Altrice’s legs in mind might infer more that he is bored with the poetry game, and also might infer that he could have a poolhall, dirty joke mind, at times. That the narrator might be attacking himself instead of trying to relegate the lady back to a “sex object” evidently is beyond the belief of some so-called Liberated women. Whether we like it or not, sex and thoughts of sex do occur to many of us (male and female) at odd and unlikely times. I rather like it.
4. That “she is indeed speaking for Bukowski himself, who has expressed a similar contempt for unknown poets who give each other support.” The lady spoke for herself. Her “contempt” was toward poets not academically trained. My dislike is toward all bad poetry and toward all bad poets who write it badly—which is most of them. I have always been disgusted with the falsity and dreariness not only of contemporary poetry but of the poetry of the centuries—and this feeling was with me before I got published, while I was attempting to get published, and it remains with me now even as I pay the rent with poesy. What kept me writing was not that I was so good but that that whole damned gang was so bad—when they had to be compared to the vitality and originality that was occurring in the other art forms. —As to those who must gather together to give each other support, I am one with Ibsen: “the strongest men are the most alone.”
5. “Now that he’s well-known and the only southern California poet published by Black Sparrow Press, he thinks that nobody else is entitled to be a poet—especially women.” My dear lady: you are entitled to be whatever you can be; if you can leap twenty feet straight up into the air or sweep a 9 race card at the Western harness meet, please go ahead and do so.
6. “A lot of us think there’s more to write poetry about than beer drunks, hemorrhoids, and how rotten the world is.” I also think there’s more to write poetry about than that and I do so.
7. “Female artists, on the other hand, try to be optimistic.” The function of the artist is not to create optimism but to create art—which sometimes may be optimistic and sometimes can’t be. The female is bred to be more optimistic than the male because of a function she has not entirely escaped as yet: the bearing of the child. After passing through pregnancy and child-birth, to call life a lie is much more difficult.
8. “Could it be that the male is ‘washed-up’ as an artist, that he has no more to say except in his jealousy, to spit on the young idealists and the newly freed voices of women?” Are these the thought concepts you come up with in your “ego-boosting” sessions? Perhaps you’d better take a night off.
9. “Poetry is an art form. Like all art forms, it is subjective and it does not have sex organs.” I don’t know about your poems, Lynne, but mine have cock and balls, eat chili peppers and walnuts, sing in the bathtub, cuss, fart, scream, stink, smell good, hate mosquitoes, ride taxicabs, have nightmares and love affairs, all that.
10. “…without being negative…” I thought they’d long ago ridden this horse to death; it’s the oldest of the oldest hats. I first heard it around the English departments of L.A. high school in 1937. The inference, when you call somebody “negative,” is that you completely remove them from the sphere because he or she has no basic understanding of life forces and meanings. I wouldn’t be caught using that term while drunk on a bus to Shreveport.
11. I don’t care for Longfellow or McKuen either, although they both possess (possessed) male organs. One of the best writers I knew of was Carson McCullers and she had a female name. If my girl friend’s dog could write a good poem or a decent novel I’d be the first to congratulate the beast. That’s Liberated.
12. Shit, I ought to get paid for this.
Charles Bukowski
[To A. D. Winans]
November [?], 1974
[***] About the foreword you yanked, o.k. That’s what an editor’s for…you either promulgate the thing or you reject it. In this game we all get stuff back, and sometimes get things taken and published that would have been better tossed away with the used condoms.
Been on the reading kick…the old survival suck…Detroit, Riverside, Santa Cruz…Ginsberg, Ferlinghetti, Snyder at S.C. Drew 1600 at 3 bucks a head. Benefit for Americans in Mexican jails…after the poets got their bit of cream. There was a bomb threat and old Allen’s ears jumped. He got on stage and improvised a poem about the situation. Linda read too. Next day we hung around town testing the bars. They seemed to be a cut or two above the general slop pits of L.A.
Ginsberg was all right, he seemed a good sort. [***]
Haven’t written too much while on this poetry reading tour. The juices are there; simply have to get into the habit of sitting at the Royal Altar…keeping letters short and staying away from the track…a bit…might be an aid.
Bukowski was now writing his novel Factotum.
[To John Martin]
December 4, 1974
Hard times are a-comin’, kid. I hope we loop through. Let’s get lucky against the tide. Why not? Meanwhile, these which I cracked out last night.
By the way, saw some of the work of this Tom Clark in Poetry Now. He really flows and gambles and plays it loose. I like his guts. Good, very, that you are publishing him. He’s the raw gnawing end of the moon.
I know about the novel. Next envelope will prob. have a couple of chapters. I reread the fucking novel and get depressed; it doesn’t quite have the spring and mox I wanted it to have. but as an easy whorehouse journal of madness I do think it scores. It’s all the angle you want to look at it at. I think, though, the best thing to do is to finish it even if I finish it badly. Getting it published seems much more secondary.
[To Louise Webb]
December 23, 1974
It’s about the same with me. Confusion, abject and candy-colored. Got Brahms on the radio…Thinking about Jon now. He gave me a powerful lift. He loved my shit. Those two books you guys did will never be topped. I look at them now and it’s all so hard to believe. And now Jon’s gone and the rare book dealers are raking in the green leaves. [***]
[To John Martin]
December 30, 1974
the screenplay shit was just some teacher wanting to do a student film. a) he doesn’t seem to have the money. b) it’s from Erections…a .45 to pay the rent…and Stone has the option on that. and c) he wants to come over and drink beer with me.
here’s some poems. the novel will soon be done. I’ll ship you 4 or 5 chapters in a few days. [***] If I don’t get murdered I figure the novel will be finished by the end of January for better or worse. I don’t think it’s a great novel, but I think it’s an odd
one, a curious one and it reads easy. well, we’ll see. did Hemingway talk like this? [***]
times are going to get deep hard and this machine is just going to have to toughen up. let’s hope the Sparrow keeps flying. ah, I got a teaser for you. want to dedicate Factotum to John and Barbara Martin. now that’s lard for the pan, isn’t it?
*The “Symbionese Liberation Army,” a terrorist group best remembered for kidnapping Patty Hearst and converting her to their cause.
· 1975 ·
The documentary Bukowski was made by Taylor Hackford and first shown in October 1973. See Hank, pp. 239-240.
[To Carl Weissner]
February 19, 1975
[***] The documentary film on Bukowski just showed at Whitney museum along with one on Henry Miller and I’m told the Bukowski got a good write-up in the New York Times. I even get quite a few phone calls at night now from drunken young girls in Mississippi, Cincinnati, Philly and New York City. Those young girls just want to suck the soul out of a literary sort, right out of the top of his cock. I’m tougher on most of those calls than most would be, I’m sure. It feels good to send those chicks scattering back to their lead-weight boy friends.
The depression is here although the govt. prefers to call it a “recession.” Which reminds me of the old one: a recession is when your friends are out of jobs, a depression is when you’re out of one. It’s at times like this that I’m glad I trained myself throughout a lifetime to detest a job of any sort. All these poor automobile workers sitting around glassy-eyed with homes halfpaid for and cheating wives. They trusted that a hard day’s work for a good day’s pay would get them through. Now as the govt. tries to pump blood into the corpse they sit around and work crossword puzzles and look at daytime TV shows programmed to the female…the only thing that will cure this is the same thing that has cured every capitalistic depression since 1940—another war; a big war, a little war, a hot war, a cold war, but war war war, and so we arm the Arabs and we arm the Jews and we send scout planes out once again in Vietnam, and I write my poems and drink my beer and try to get through the last 4 scenes in Factotum, and I fight with my girlfriend, hop a plane to Santa Barbara, pick up 300 bucks for making them laugh at Baudelaire, and I find myself on a house boat the next day with 3 crazy people and we’re laughing at the ducks and the boats and the sky and everything we say, smoking that bad shit, and we’re still alive and we walk down the docks later and all at once all the boat owners honk their horns at us and we wave our arms and wave our arms and the horns honk and honk all over the harbor, one picking it up after the other and not knowing why, and we wave our arms among all the honking, and as we get into the car and drive off they are still honking, you can hear them over the engine. You see, when I read in Santa Barbara, Carl, I even turn on the abalone fisherman and the mallards. somebody taped it with real professional equipment. it was a good crowd that night, drinking out of huge mugs of beer. if this guy spins me off a tape I should spin one off for you. charms.
[To Hank Malone]
April 20, 1975
I am still zonking on the poem and the story, no quitting, I guess. They’re going to have to come get me, I can’t do the Hemingway no matter how much I admired it. I guess I got started so late that I’m still trying to save ground.
Still trouble with the ladies; what a dirty, hard and relentless game that one can get to be.
Finished the 2nd novel. prob. out in Sept. it’s a little rough and maybe a little corny but think it has some saving graces in the halfass mad desperateness of ye central charcoal.
uh huh.
your blithe and non-boring presence when I was in Deetroit not forgotten.
Winans published California Bicentennial Poets Anthology in 1976.
[To A. D. Winans]
April 29, 1975
got to say I’m glad you found some—so many—for the antho.
word leaking down here that you’re getting drunk up there and kicking ass. the way I look at it, Frisco-wise, is that any ass you kick is the right one.
finished the 2nd novel. [***] it’ll be a long time to do a third novel. if it ever comes it will probably have to do with the MAN-WOMAN situation, and that’s a big bite out of the lurking dark. to do it well I’m going to have to grow up more, plenty more. may never grow that much. [***]
[To John Martin]
May 28, 1975
You must allow the writing to write itself. I can think of one in your particular stable who has simply written herself out by not waiting for the re-fill process. It’s easy enough to do, this thing of getting very professional about your act. Ez did it, Ernie did it, and it didn’t work, finally. You’ve been much more than an editor to me, and that’s all right. But you have to trust my instincts. I make enough errors, that’s part of it. But I think in the final addition the luck holds. Do you know what I mean? Sure you do. Relax.
p.s.—the drink won’t get me. I know that monster too well. if I don’t get murdered by a woman I’ll burn up a hell of a lot more typer ribbons. yeh.
[To Mike—?]
June 22, 1975
[***] maybe you’re writing too much the way I write. I once wrote like William Saroyan for about 3 years until I decided that his content was candyass and only his rolling style had something to hang a hat to. so I took part of that. and part of Ernie and part of Celine and I had a little luck. maybe when you decide that I am candyass you’ll have a better chance. [***]
Roth Wilkofsky was, with Karyl Klopp, editor of Pomegranate Press, North Cambridge, Massachusetts.
[To Roth Wilkofsky]
August 9, 1975
[***] Have had the flu and my balls actually ache and my girl friend is crying for sex sex sex, and yes I’ve heard the Bruckners you mention but I don’t have a phono, but always glad when I get Bruck, by luck, on the radio. He’s good sound listening, puts it right on the rail. I think he’s terribly underestimated because he sucked to Wagner so much, but unlike his master he didn’t fuck his work up so much with the human voice, which is most of the time one of the worst sounding instruments. yah. [***]
[To Carl Weissner]
August 28, 1975
[***] there’s too much to do here too—meaning writing, drinking, fights with women, drinking, playing the horses, drinking, fights with women, drinking, and visits by people who do me very little good. I’m going to have to get harder with the door knockers. there have become so many of them. each thinking that they are the special ones, that they have something to say, something for me to drink, something for me to listen to. some of them even have balls enough to bring their WRITING. kindness sometimes only begets pain. these people have nothing but time to lounge around in. I don’t mind wasting time as long as I do it in my way, it’s somehow still not so bad. but after they drip their tiny souls all over me it’s a long time getting back to where I can even feel less than half-sick. 99 per cent of the world consists of bloodsuckers who must feed and feed and feed. I am going to send them to another bucket of blood. [***]
The Russian composer’s full name is Reinhold Moritzovich Glière.
[To Roth Wilkofsky]
September 4, 1975
[***] 3:30 p.m. on my 2nd beer. rolling Prince Albert. something on the radio. what is it? I’ve heard it, yes. many times. can’t spell it. Illeia Morovitz by Gliere? long strains and strands.
have in mind to shape up a few of the ten or 12 poems I wrote last night. when drinking one tends to use too many lines but a certain gamble comes about and you use some lines you’d probably never use when you’re sober. mostly I hack out the flowers and leave in the brambles.
Bruckner and Mahler, yes. I could never quite get it on with the Bee. Don’t know why. Bach was easy because he didn’t have to carry around a lot of excess crap. anyhow, classical music and booze—taken together—have carried me through many a night when it seemed as if there were nothing else around. and maybe there wasn’t.
[To John Martin]
September 19, 1975
Charles Plymell is the author of many books of poems from various small presses.
[To Charles Plymell]
October 29, 1975
[***] My ass is really strapped for time but I burn and slobber away a lot of time anyhow, and have been meaning to answer your letter which I appreciated…Rolling Stone Mag by today shooting photos for an article on Bukowski which they say should appear in the next issue or two. The cover of Time mag is next and then I will end up sucking my own dick with my legs strapped around the bedposts.
The whole problem is how serious a man can take what the media does to and/or for him. What one should realize is that the media puffs up a hell of a lot of stale fruitcake…like Joe Namath, Bob Hope, Robert Ford, Henry Ford, Zippo Marx, dead Kenny’s x-wife widow, all that. Most creative artists are weak because they are emotional, and because it’s hard and dirty work even though it’s most interesting work. They fall to exposure, camera flashes, that grisly attention. I think that when any creative artist gets good enough society has an Animal out There that the artist is fed to so he won’t get any stronger. Creativity, no matter what you say, is somehow bound up with adversity, and when you get dangerous enough they simply take away your adversity. They’ve done it with the blacks, they’ve done it with the Chicanos, they’ve done it with the women, and now they’re playing with me. I intend to allow them to clutch a loud, empty fart for their reward. I will be elsewhere, cleaning my toenails or reading the Racing Form.* [***]
Living on Luck Page 19