Recent content by Olaf

Hey Johannes, Good to hear from you. I am well. I grew up. Just a little bit. Devastating. ;) I still see a lot of people on here from way back then. Whatever happen to Dam Dusky? Or Dusty? I have been dipping in and out of Bukowski again after coming back into the sight and being inspired or...

Yep, fair enough, though 'drinking' and 'drunk' are aspects of tense and don't necessarily change the meaning in a significant way. 'he took a drink' 'he got drunk' are different but not in a meaningful way that would distort meaning. Only a tiny shift in tense. But I get you, I do, I...

I've spent most of the day trawling through them and I do hear you. Some of them are total howlers! Or just weak. Deflating. Cumbersome. So yeah. I am tending towards 'view them as duds' what is interesting though is my first full collection of Bukowski's was 'What matters most is how well you...

It doesn't say that much, does it? That it is OK to edit? Bukowski edited a lot anyway. I'm not being puritanical? It is OK to edit a work and it still retain the whole of its meaning? Literally changing a verb or a noun here or there, is normal editing. It doesn't corrupt the poem or commit...

I'm curious, where is the original version? I have 'what matters most' and the typed version and the version in the book are the exact same? Is there a link to the apparently 'mutilated' version? OK. I have found the change in the first stanza. Again though, they don't actually change anything...

Thanks. That's a lot of work to find. Take for example 'So you want to be a writer' originally titled 'Do you want to be in the arena?' There are some edits however they don't actually change or destroy the meaning of the poem at all. So there really isn't anything 'wrong' with the edits...

The first collection I read was 'what matters most is how well you walk through the fire' (one of the first books to allegedly be 'edited' a little bit too much) and I still loved the book. The Bukowski tone, attitude and tone had not been butchered out of the writing at all. I came to that book...

I discovered him online in the late 90's. I can't be sure. Maybe 1998/9. The first poem i READ was on a website called 'Writerswrite.com' and the poem was posted by another writer 'for jane' and it really struck me. Particularly the line: 'I kneel in the nights before tigers that will not let...

Hi, I don't have a copy of 'Sifting through the madness' on me but I was trying to find a poem in it, it goes something like 'no one is more hard done by than the average white man' and the poem lists a whole load of 'homosexual black lesbian feminist' poets etc. etc. I really wanted to show...

Great interview, you mention so many interesting connections with Bukowski, the writing, influence etc. Really comes across as a considered, insightful, interview. As they say in Czech, super. :)

Oddly, she never died on a boat.

I like how this thread is going. It's true prose can feed, poetry is for the mind. But, if you're in it for the money, you're a luneball.I used to make 30 pounds for writing short consumer articles for a guy who ran a student magazine. I have also sold about 10 copies of my book for 5 pounds...

These days it seems that there are so many people alive at the same time that there is just a saturation of everything, and everyone. Millions of poets. Millions of painters. Millions of joiners. Millions of students. Millions of gas men. Millions of plumbers. Millions of teachers. Total...

I don't have a correct numerical order. Not because I'm mathophobic. I just don't know who is the best. Not even sure I know ten American writers I love. Though I do love these few in extremis: Charles Bukowski Kurt Vonnegut Carson McCullers Walt Whitman e.e. cummings James Ellroy (My Dark...

I read Ask the Dust, when I was working in Italy. It was great; the relationship between Bandini and Lopez, is one of the most beautiful, and intense, I have read of. I mean that. There were so many comparisons with Bukowski - the hotel dwelling, struggling wrtier, living with lots of odd...