Other Writers: Richard Brautigan William S. Burroughs Neal Cassady Gregory Corso Robert Creeley Diane di Prima Robert Duncan William Everson Lawrence Ferlinghetti Allen Ginsberg John Clellon Holmes LeRoi Jones Bob Kaufman Jack Kerouac Ken Kesey Philip Lamantia Denise Levertov Michael McClure Frank O'Hara Peter Orlovsky Kenneth Patchen Kenneth Rexroth Gary Snyder Anne Waldman Lew Welch Philip Whalen William Carlos Williams     PHOTO GALLERY Charles Bukowski, born in 1920, began writing at a young age and was first published in the 1940s. Then Bukowksi gave up writing for the world of work and bars, not publishing, not writing, so the myth goes, for nearly twenty years. Ten of those years were spent roaming from odd job to odd roominghouse from the East coast to the West. The other ten years, Bukowski worked for the United States Postal Service in Los Angeles, a job that took no effort except for the strength to show up and the patience to perform mindless operations. During that time, his life bordered on insanity and death, two prevalent themes in his writing. According to his own myth making, Bukowski returned to writing the day that he quit the Postal Service, but his bibliography shows that indeed, he had been publishing several years before that. Bukowksi's first generally recognized publication date is in the 1960s, yet citations from the early 60s exist in Sanford Dorbin's early bibliography, and The Roominghouse Madrigals prints poems from the late 40s. The fact is that Bukowski has published extensively in various small literary publications for over thirty years. These publications exist in small numbers and are difficult if not impossible to find. Fortunately, John Martin of Black Sparrow Press has managed to cull together these poems and stories over several collections, until catching up with his contemporary writings in the 80s. In total, there are over forty books in print written by Bukowski. Since his death on March 9, 1994, a growing number of books deal with Bukowski as a critical source and literary legend. Although Bukowski was never truly associated with Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, or other major Beat writers, his informal style and non-conforming literary approach has endeared him to readers of the Beat genre. My Father  (from "Septuagenarian Stew" 1994)   ( Top of Page ) was a truly amazing man he pretended to be rich even though we lived on beans and mush and weenies when we sat down to eat, he said, "not everybody can eat like this." and because he wanted to be rich or because he actually thought he was rich he always voted Republican and he voted for Hoover against Roosevelt and he lost and then he voted for Alf Landon against Roosevelt and he lost again saying, "I don't know what this world is coming to, now we've got that god damned Red in there again and the Russians will be in our backyard next!" I think it was my father who made me decide to become a bum. I decided that if a man like that wants to be rich then I want to be poor. and I became a bum. I lived on nickles and dimes and in cheap rooms and on park benches. I thought maybe the bums knew something. but I found out that most of the bums wanted to be rich too. they had just failed at that. so caught between my father and the bums I had no place to go and I went there fast and slow. never voted Republican never voted. buried him like an oddity of the earth like a hundred thousand oddities like millions of other oddities, wasted. The Great Slob  (from "Septuagenarian Stew" 1994)   ( Top of Page ) I was always a natural slob I liked to lay upon the bed in undershirt (stained, of course) (and with cigarette holes) shoes off beerbottle in hand trying to shake off a difficult night, say with a woman still around walking the floor complaining about this and that, and I'd work up a belch and say, "HEY, YOU DON'T LIKE IT? THEN GET YOUR ASS OUT OF HERE!" I really loved myself, I really loved my slob- self, and they seemed to also: always leaving but almost always coming back. The Blackbirds are Rough Today   ( Top of Page ) lonely as a dry and used orchard spread over the earth for use and surrender. shot down like an ex-pug selling dailies on the corner. taken by tears like an aging chorus girl who has gotten her last check. a hanky is in order your lord your worship. the blackbirds are rough today like ingrown toenails in an overnight jail--- wine wine whine, the blackbirds run around and fly around harping about Spanish melodies and bones. and everywhere is nowhere--- the dream is as bad as flapjacks and flat tires: why do we go on with our minds and pockets full of dust like a bad boy just out of school--- you tell me, you who were a hero in some revolution you who teach children you who drink with calmness you who own large homes and walk in gardens you who have killed a man and own a beautiful wife you tell me why I am on fire like old dry garbage. we might surely have some interesting correspondence. it will keep the mailman busy. and the butterflies and ants and bridges and cemeteries the rocket-makers and dogs and garage mechanics will still go on a while until we run out of stamps and/or ideas. don't be ashamed of anything; I guess God meant it all like locks on doors. Young in New Orleans   ( Top of Page ) starving there, sitting around the bars, and at night walking the streets for hours, the moonlight always seemed fake to me, maybe it was, and in the French Quarter I watched the horses and buggies going by, everybody sitting high in the open carriages, the black driver, and in back the man and the woman, usually young and always white. and I was always white. and hardly charmed by the world. New Orleans was a place to hide. I could piss away my life, unmolested. except for the rats. the rats in my dark small room very much resented sharing it with me. they were large and fearless and stared at me with eyes that spoke an unblinking death. women were beyond me. they saw something depraved. there was one waitress a little older than I, she rather smiled, lingered when she brought my coffee. that was plenty for me, that was enough. there was something about that city, though it didn't let me feel guilty that I had no feeling for the things so many others needed. it let me alone. sitting up in my bed the llights out, hearing the outside sounds, lifting my cheap bottle of wine, letting the warmth of the grape enter me as I heard the rats moving about the room, I preferred them to humans. being lost, being crazy maybe is not so bad if you can be that way undisturbed. New Orleans gave me that. nobody ever called my name. no telephone, no car, no job, no anything. me and the rats and my youth, one time, that time I knew even through the nothingness, it was a celebration of something not to do but only know.