Beerspit Night and Cursing

by Charles Bukowski

  my castle in italy: when Pound was released from St. Elizabeths he left the U.S. and settled in his son-in-law’s castle in Italy.

  sad to be a halfbreed: SM was of Irish-Italian ancestry.

  Tommie Yee: a fashion photographer prominent in New York City in the 1940s.

  The Psyche: apparently a new version of an older painting of hers.

  A.D.L.: Anti-Defamation League.

  Suzie Wongs: the 1960 movie The World of Suzie Wong concerns a Hong Kong prostitute who falls in love with the artist for whom she poses.

  Leoun…Cocteau: this long poem, admired by Pound, was first published in 1945 and later appeared (in Alan Neame’s English translation) in Agenda as the complete contents of its Dec. 1960-Jan. 1961 issue, which CB later comments on (see his letter of “almost December” 1961). Cocteau’s film La Belle et la Bête (1946) features “couches leaping out on halloween masks” among other effects.

  Examiner: the San Francisco Examiner, one of the city’s major newspapers.

  The Life of Borodin: first appeared in Quicksilver (Autumn 1958), rpt. in BW (19), where CB changed the title back to “On the Steppes…,” even though In the Steppes is indeed the standard translation of the Russian composer’s symphonic piece.

  “ever-present English woman”: Pound’s British-born wife, Dorothy Shakespear.

  married to a millionaire’s daughter: though Frye’s family was wealthy, CB is greatly exaggerating here, as he did elsewhere.

  SEBELIUS: Jean Sibelius (1865-1957), Finnish composer.

  Walker…yr A and P: a drawing of Walker by SM did indeed appear on the cover of issue #5, which CB received at the end of January.

  Signature…Targets #4: pp. 13-20 of issue 4 of Targets was published separately as A Signature of Charles Bukowski Poetry in December 1960.

  Horse on Fire: one of the poems in A Signature, concerning Pound and Canto 90; rpt. in RM (70). See Appendix 1 for SM’s comments.

  Lord Beaconsfield: i.e, Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881), author and prime minister of England.

  Bastinado!: usually a beating, but here probably a play on Basta! (Italian: “enough!”).

  Pax vobiscum: Latin: “Peace be with you.”

  Grove Press: at the time, the most important publisher (along with New Directions) of avant-garde writing in the U.S.

  took you to task about it in A & P: SM reviewed A Signature of Charles Bukowski Poetry—with special attention to “Horse on Fire”—in the next issue of A&P. (See Appendix 1 and notes to CB’s postcard of 30 January 1961 below.)

  Hokusai: Japanese artist (1760-1849).

  Coke books: Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634), English jurist. His Institutes of the Laws of England is frequently quoted in Cantos 107-109.

  Conrad Aiken: American poet and novelist (1889-1973).

  a poem of mine about fory: “Letter from the North,” rpt. in RM (120).

  Fastest Insight Alive: unidentified.

  mid fan. 1961: SM dated this letter January 14, but the reference to Kennedy’s inauguration invalidates this date.

  Kennedy…Frost: references to the inauguration ceremony for John F. Kennedy on 20 January 1961, at which Frost read his poem “The Gift Outright.”

  prof in the English dept. of Louisiana State University: John William Corrington; for CB’s response, which he quotes below, see LL 9-10. (Cf. CB’s earlier use of the aphorism in his letter of 12 October 1960 above.)

  Millers kissing Monroe: dramatist Arthur Miller was married to actress Marilyn Monroe.

  Barrymore: John Barrymore (1882-1942) was remembered for his portrayal of Hamlet in the 1924-25 season.

  Dos Passos and Koestler: John Dos Pass os (1896-1970) and Arthur Koestler (1905-1983), politically active novelists.

  Nora: Nora D. Lyden, a contributor to A&P.

  C. Day Lewis in the Sat. Ev. Post: the English poet and critic’s essay “The Making of a Poem” appeared in the 21 January 1961 issue of the Saturday Evening Post. Charlie McCarthy was a famous ventriloquist’s dummy.

  A and P: issue #5, published January 1961. It contains four poems by CB, none of them collected in book form: “I Get All the Breaks,” “Poem for My Little Dog Who Also Growls Quite Well,” “Scaled Like a Fish,” and “A Disorganized Poem on a Disorganized Day, with Women Running in and out and the Price of Beer up 2¢ a Can” (reprinted in Appendix 2).

  Murakami …Walker: other contributors to this issue: Masayoshi Murakami has four poems (one entitled “Bamboo,” hence CB’s postscript); Arthur Richer two poems; Clarence Major contributed three poems as well as a review of CB’s Flower, Fist & Bestial Wail; Richard Gumbiner has an essay entitled “Some Notes Taken at the Museo National de Mexico”; Jory Sherman a poem entitled “Little Breath Prayer”; Samuel F. Lewis an untitled poem of light verse concerning Robert Graves and Robert Frost; Walker has a poem entitled “Sheri” printed on the front and back covers, as well as six poems within.

  Norman and Buk: SM’s own contributions to this issue include a scathing review of Charles Norman’s biography Ezra Pound (1960) and one on A Signature of Charles Bukowski (reprinted in Appendix 1)

  sleepin’ wit the white gals: a reference to Major’s poem “Chicago Scene” in this issue of A&P.

  drawings…with comments: these appeared in A&P #6; see Appendix 2.

  “Isis” and not “Ra Set”: SM was thinking here of her painting Princess Ra Set; she forgot that there is a photograph of her ceramic work Ra Set in La Martinelli, which also includes her Isis of the Two Kingdoms.

  YR OBJECTION…IN FORTHCOMING A & P: these never appeared.

  Masa: Masayoshi Murakami.

  Vermont Ave.: the address of L.A. City College, which CB attended 1939-41.

  I would…men’s believing: the concluding lines of Pound’s early poem “An Immortality” (Ripostes, 1912).

  the Pound-thing: CB’s “Horse on Fire.”

  Walter Winchell: radio and TV personality (1897-1972), known for his gossipy style.

  SaRet: that is, Ra Set: see note to SM’s letter of 14 February 1964 below.

  kaja: pen name of Kaye Johnson, a poet.

  “moth going…an hr”: from “Hooray Say the Roses,” in Outsider 1 (Fall 1961); rpt. in BW (27).

  Pay Yr Rent or Get Out: also in the first issue of Outsider, rpt. in It Catches My Heart in Its Hands (1963).

  Wilder Bently: Bentley was an acquaintance of SM’s, otherwise unknown.

  next a & p…poem for the dead whore: CB’s “Poem for Liz” appeared in APR #6; rpt. in RM (195-96), and in Appendix 2.

  The Flowering of the Rod: from the Selected Poems SM urged CB to buy.

  Lux in Diafana…Ursula benedetta: the titles of two paintings by SM mentioned in Canto 93, from which she quotes.

  blurbs Webb sent: for the first issue of Outsider.

  Longshot Poems for Broke Players: a chapbook published later that year (not 1962, as usually given); see CB’s letter of “Late Oct. ’61,” below.

  Layover…Lay Over: originally published in the Naked Ear #9 (as indicated later in the letter), rpt. in RM (51).

  Judson Crews: prolific writer and editor for small presses and magazines.

  Gil Orlovitz: Act of the Sonnet…stealing one of my lines: that is, Art of the Sonnet, one of Orlovitz’s (1918-1973) better-known books of poetry.

  some lines…bird-light: SM had criticized these lines in her review of A Signature of Charles Bukowski.

  Muss…Carlotta somebody?: Benito Mussolini and his mistress, Claretta Petacci, were executed on 27 April 1945 and then hung from their feet from a scaffold.

  hung Ben from his heels: echoes the opening of The Pisan Cantos: “Thus Ben and la Clara a Milano / by the heels at Milano” (74/445).

  Elizabeth Bartlett: a California writer.

  Ferlinghetti…censorship fight: over his publication of Ginsberg’s Howl. His novel Her was published by New Directions in 1960.

  Whalen: Philip Whalen (1923-), San Francisco poet.

  7 Poets Press…Larsen: Carl
Larsen edited CB’s Longshot Pomes [sic] for Broke Players.

  Pagliaccia: Pagliacci, Leoncavallo’s famous opera.

  Winters, Lowell, Ransom, Tate: major American poets at the time.

  Alaric: Visigoth king and conqueror (370?-410).

  Spad: a French fighter plane.

  d.p.’s son Omar Pound: Dorothy Shakespear’s son (1926-), raised by Pound as his own.

  eeeezzzzesss: Isis, the Egyptian goddess.

  stancioff family: a well-to-do family that SM stayed with intermittently during the 1950s while visiting Pound.

  “bright hawk…shall chain”: from Canto 91 (635).

  gautier: Henri Gaudier-Brzeska (1891-1915), French sculptor, championed by Pound.

  Pascin: Jules Pascin (1885-1930), Bulgarian-born American painter, draughtsman, and printmaker.

  beverly: Beverly Applebaum, a poetry contributor to A&P.

  red and square-shaped thing: SM’s portrait Daw oo.

  McNaughton kitty: William McNaughton (see note to SM’s letter of 20 December 1960 above).

  pound’s usury canto: Canto 45.

  american mercury: a magazine founded by 18H. L. Mencken in 1924 that had become extremely right-wing by the 1960s.

  Rick Beck-Meyer: unidentified.

  My book: Longshot Pomes for Broke Players would appear in October.

  Mummy: four of CB’s poems were published in an issue of Mummy in 1962.

  white niggers: probably a reference to Norman Mailer’s influential essay “The White Negro” (1957).

  H.D. issue: A&P #6 was dedicated to the dying poet and contains several essays on her work by SM. CB contributed “Poem for Liz” and five pages of captioned drawings: see Appendix 2.

  book with college prof.: never published.

  death of H.D.: she died 27 September 1961.

  x-wife…magazine: Frye’s Harlequin.

  Vegas: rpt. in BW (33-34), part of which reads: “I said, there’s some gal up North who used to / sleep with Pound, she’s trying to tell me that H.D. / was our greatest scribe; well, Hilda gave us a few pink / Grecian gods in with the chinaware, but after reading her / I still have 140 icicles hanging from my bones.”

  Pound poem for H.D.: a puzzling reference (there is no Pound poem for H. D. in this issue of A&P); perhaps a poem Pound included in his compliments on the H.D. issue, which were conveyed to SM by a mutual acquaintance.

  recordi: Italian: “remember.”

  serenitas: Lat.: “brightness” (Canto 111/803).

  The Day…out the Window: this and the following poems are from Longshot Pomes; titles have been supplied in brackets after SM’s page references.

  roohoooshuns wd dream of beating a donkey: an allusion to Raskolnikov’s dream in Dostoevski’s Crime and Punishment (1866).

  Rev. H. Swabey: Henry Swabey, an Anglican clergyman and occasional reviewer for Agenda; he corresponded with Pound on Social Credit.

  sue Nation magazine: SM was so incensed at David Rattray’s description of her in his Nation article “Weekend with Ezra Pound” (16 November 1957) that she wanted to sue him, but was talked out of it by Dorothy Shakespear.

  icor: ichor: an ethereal blood, the blood of gods (Canto 91/631).

  my album in Outsider #1: eleven poems were published as “A Charles Bukowski Album” in the first issue of the Outsider (pp. 48-53).

  Satis: “A 350 Dollar Horse and a Hundred Dollar Whore” and “What Seems to Be the Trouble, Gentlemen?” were published in the Spring-Summer 1962 issue.

  Lawrence…Ship of Death: written a few months before Lawrence died in 1930.

  The Priest and the Matador: published in the Winter 1961 issue of Epos; rpt. in BW (41).

  Agenda…Shot-toe: Cocteau’s “Leoun”; see note to CB’s letter of 3 January 1961.

  my own book: never published, whatever it was.

  Cookson: William Cookson, editor of Agenda and a Pound scholar.

  Mancho: i.e., Manchu. SM apparently added Chinese ideograms (probably from Pound’s Cantos) to some of her letters.

  Outsider…jazz thing: a survey of jazz by several writers appeared in issues 2 and 3 of the Outsider.

  Cuscaden: R. R. Cuscaden, publisher and critic.

  Satis: two of CB’s poems appeared in the Spring—Summer 1962 issue, along with Cuscaden’s critical essay “Charles Bukowski: Poet in a Ruined Landscape.”

  Remains: published in Outcry in 1963, rpt. in DRA (65).

  review: unidentified; Dorbin lists three reviews of CB’s work for 1962—in Rongwrong, Outcry, and Gallows—but I doubt any of these could be described as a “liberal N. York rag.”

  Mead and Rutherford: editors of Satis.

  cummings…Jeffers: all of these writers died between July 1961 and September 1962.

  “dog howl”: source unknown.

  Wormwood Review 7: includes CB’s poem “Thank God for Alleys,” rpt. in RM (206).

  Outsider 3: three of CB’s poems appeared in #3 (Spring 1963), along with a reprint of Cuscaden’s essay from Satis: see CB’s letter of 28 January 1963 below.

  3 submissions: never published; A & P had ceased regular publication by this time.

  a novel: CB would write his first novel, Post Office, seven years later.

  a book of my poems: It Catches My Heart in Its Hands, published in October 1963.

  Frost is dead: died 29 January 1963.

  Cosmic warheads have moved off: a reference to the Cuban missile crisis.

  Sacramento woman: the poet Ann Menebroker.

  book: It Catches My Heart in Its Hands—a lavishly designed production. It had an introduction by Corrington, which SM criticizes in her next letter.

  Ollie: proprietor of a tavern near SM’s cabin; Gilbert thinks her name may have been Olivia Fort.

  Hunter Ingalls: (1934-), poet and later a professor of art history.

  Princess Ra Set: a goddess mentioned often in the Rock-Drill Cantos (91/631-33, 92/638, 94/661), a conflation of two male Egyptian gods into a female divinity. SM identified with Princess Ra-Set and created both a ceramic and a painting with that title (see note to her letter of 8 February 1961 above).

  missing line: in “Dinner, Rain & Transport,” a line (“I can prophecy evil”) was dropped between lines 9-10.

  targets 15: six poems by CB appear on pp. 4-20 of Targets #15 (September 1963).

  old address: CB had moved from North Mariposa to De Longpre Avenue in East Hollywood.

  an exhibit: a generous selection of SM’s work was exhibited in September 1964 at the Severence Center in Cleveland, her only one-woman show.

  new collection: Crucifix in a Deathhand, published in April 1965.

  New York Times (Rexroth): Kenneth Rexroth reviewed CB’s book (along with those by three others) in the 5 July 1964 issue of the New York Times.

  Kali Yuga: the fourth and most decadent of the four ages (yugas) of the Hindu world cycle.

  H. D.…words conceal?”: from part 8 of “The Walls Do Not Fall.”

  Wax Wrath…chats: Rexroth had a regular books program on KPFA, the Berkeley-Pacifica station, which SM undoubtedly listened to.

  Behan: Brendan Behan (1923-64), Irish playwright.

  Soma…Svaha: all Hindu deities.

  cosi sia: Italian: “so be it.”

  yr book: Crucifix in a Deathhand, which would place this undated letter in mid-1965.

  Mr. Cayce: Edgar Cayce (1877-1945), American spiritualist whose works SM would study the rest of her life.

  dammitALL Bukowski: cf. the opening of Pound’s Canto 2: “Hang it all, Robert Browning…” (6).

  Veryl Rosenbaum: a writer who planned to publish a collection of CB’s letters (which never appeared). In April 1966 CB wrote to Rosenbaum: “I know that the book of letters a long way away but if it ever happens, run what you wish. only there is something I’d wish you to strike out in reference to Sheri Martinelli. I don’t know if I did, but I might have mentioned her in other letters as ‘Pound’s x-whore.’ she’s a fine woman but don’t think she’d
understand. In a sense, I am a romantic; I mean when I call a woman a whore, I mean, in my language, a woman who loves one man and one man only and I use the term in fondness to depict faithfulness, and there is no derogatory intent involved” (LL 65-66).

  Red Bricks in My Eyes: unpublished.

  Master Kung: Confucius (Kung Fu-tse). He is usually called Kung in The Cantos.

  Not with the Sunburnt Fury of a Whitman: also unpublished.

  office-mobile: SM did much of her work in a camper up until she died.

  daughter’s: Marina Louise Bukowski was born 7 September 1964 to CB and his common-law wife, Frances Elizabeth Dean (1922-).

  Uncle in Andernach: Heinrich Fett, in his seventies at the time. Andernach, in northern Germany, was CB’s birthplace.

  Blaz: Douglas Blazek (1941-), poet and editor of the magazine Ole, to which CB contributed.

  yr book: Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live with Beasts, published by Blazek’s Mimeo Press in August 1965. (This long story was reprinted in CB’s South of No North [1973].)

  CRITICAL ARTICLES: by this time CB was regularly writing essays and reviews in addition to poetry; see Dorbin 64-65.

  Reid: Reid B. Johnson organized SM’s show.

  The Children of the Ghetto: once-popular novel about Jewish life by English writer Israel Zangwill (1864-1926).

  “if they hate you…”: John 15:18.

  Ovid: the Roman poet spent the last years of his life in exile on the coast of the Black Sea.

  Here’s to you…never wert: a parody of Shelley’s “To a Skylark.”

  Cold Dogs…Atomic Scribblings: Cold Dogs in the Courtyard was a poetry chapbook published in the summer of 1965. Poems Written…, another chapbook, was scheduled to appear in 1965 but was postponed until 1968. Atomic Scribblings from a Maniac Age was advertised in early 1966 as forthcoming from Border Press, but never appeared.

  The Webb: the Webbs’ edition of Crucifix in a Deathhand, priced at $7.50 when first published.

  Mary: Mary de Rachewiltz (née Maria Rudge), Pound’s daughter by his mistress Olga Rudge.

  “Expect…Resentment”: source unknown.

  Walter deLaMere: English poet and novelist Walter de la Mare (1873-1956), singled out in CB’s letter of 22 April 1961 as one of “very few poets of pure aspect.”