Any Charles Bukowski Readers?

I started reading him recently. My favorites so far are: Ham on Rye, Factotum, Women, Post Office, Last Night of The Earth Poems.

I also love this reading of Nirvana by Tom Waits
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-vdPkESLZs

April 13th, 2014

I know there are many Bukowski fans on the site–check out the annotated Bukowski selections, and feel free to hop in and help break them down!

April 13th, 2014

God, who’d wanna be such an asshole…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2UCT5ABGa4

S/o @SR_thePangloss, who’s dropped some nice Bukowski tates.

April 15th, 2014

There’s so much more to Bukowski than “Notes of a Dirty Old Man.” He gets a bad rap as a misogynist for his early work. However, when you read his essays and commentaries, for example, “Portions from a Wine-Stained Notebook,” you get a sense of how well read the man was and understand why, as a matter of economic survival, he had to work a so-called “dirty” part into his early stories. His volume of poetry “Betting On the Muse,” written as he was dying, is quite moving and filled with wisdom and insight. Also, the anthology and audio recording “Uncensored – Run With the Hunted Sessions” features Bukowski in conversation and reading selections in a retrospective of his career. If I had to pick a personal favorite, it would be “Fan Letter.”

http://www.amazon.com/Charles-Bukowski-Uncensored-CD/dp/0694524220

April 16th, 2014

I’ve started using this as an email signature and on my personal stationary shortly after this billboard appeared on LaBrea Avenue in Hollywood. I lived and worked in Hollywood in the early 1990s, and used to drive past this billboard and other Bukowski landmarks every day. “What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.” This was a title of one of his collections of poetry. As a maxim for living an authentic life, this is up there with “the unexamined life is not worth living” and “life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.” Bukowski was a man on a mystical path; he confronted his dark side with a sense of humor and “walked the talk” with practical feet.

April 16th, 2014

@WilliamWhitaker Thanks for two very perceptive posts on Bukowski— I really don’t know his stuff that well, but I’d love to see any annotations you’d be able to write on Fan Letter, or indeed any more of his work.

April 16th, 2014
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