O Sweet Jesus
Here's my take on this uncollected literary hot potato after living with it for a few days. I write only as an amateur who loves talent, and I see Hello! as adventurous beyond its use of one of the most racially offensive words in the language: the dreaded n-word; and I think there's more to the poem than meets the eye.
More hemming and hawing... The problem is that in order to comment at all it's necessary to refer the same words Bukowski did in the poem, and how does one get around that without risking the charge of being insensitive oneself if there's a black man or woman reading it?
DISCLAIMER: my first music teacher was a wonderful black man, named Milton Hall, from East L.A. who taught me at the age of 12 about Duke Ellington and his great clarinet man, Jimmy Hamilton! He was big, dimpled, had a great laugh and the patience of Job, and his spirit was as big as the 'negro' that Bukowski describes in Hello! There begins my artistic appreciation of the black race, without whom America might be more of a superficial cultural wasteland than it already is. Only by being unafraid to risk using Buk's language can anyone appreciate the words within the context of the poem itself and see his artistic development. So call this an appreciation of what I got out of it rather than an attempt to put words into Bukowski's mouth.
Okay, on Hello!... when Bukowski introduces the 'O' as he writes "O, big nigger," I believe he saves himself and elevates the intention underlying the poem to a much higher plane - higher than through the ordinary use of these racially charged words, and instead his poem become a paean, a tribute to the man he's writing about and to the naturalness of the negro race as a whole. Every reaction Bukowski has appears unexpected and internal, and he's witnessing this unexpected scene of great spiritual and 'animal' wonder as if it might have happened 100 years ago during the time of Whitman. The O carries the sound of earnest sincerity and something holy, as in O Israel! O Joy! O Lord! (Whitman: O Pioneer!) I believe the reactions he puts down are sincere and real. So what's he saying without trying to reinterpret him?
The first stanza has the feeling of something good about to happen, and I feel there's unusual skill in the way Bukowski delivers his pacing and rhythm:
"Sky: cold; time: morning; listen, watch:
Here it comes by --
O, big nigger..."
Bam! He hits the reader right between the eyes with the unexpected n-word and grabs their attention. But which way is the poem going? Bukowski then repeats these words in a pattern of 'recurrence' to add additional drama, grandeur, and unity to the overall poem. The use of recurrence also establishes a cadence of rhythm and sound, builds momentum, and is found in countless later poems. ('The Big Fire,' from Mockingbird Wish Me Luck, is a favorite.)
Every time he repeats these three loaded words - surprise, surprise - he finds something positive to admire other than what might be expected because of their common usage... Each time he uses it as a salutation, his feelings of admiration become richer, deeper, with the poem becoming bigger and bigger in scope, full of as much goodness and openness of heart, hail fellow well met, as Bukowski seems capable of - a rare glimpse into his sensitive nature that has nothing to do with the self-protective hardness he was known for because of his drinking, bar fights, and the beatings by his father. I think it's the warmth of his open-heartedness that makes this poem of value, and unique, compared to what I've already read of him.
There's a big risk using the three word phrase over and over again, because everyone knows that it's a super-charged, pejorative term used by bigots to denigrate blacks, and had Bukowski used the phrase to trash blacks, I doubt that this poem would have ever been written, let alone seen the light of day in any publication - and deservedly so. But as this is a paean of praise of a real or imagined event, he steals the thunder from the bigots, plays off the usual emotional charge of the words for added dramatic effect, and uses them as a salutation of praise rather than condemnation:
(excerpts)
"O, big nigger
"O, fine bone and power of horses...
riding loose sway and rumble
lousy wood and filled mesh
hauled hard in flesh and wildness...
something touches between us and you..."
Then Bukowski gets even bigger in sentiment and is carried into the celestial:
"they speak of wombs and stars and roses...
they speak of Spain and wounds and love...
a thousand poems to Lorca
dying in the rain...
O big nigger
the top of the morning to you!"
The last line is a hearty unexpected sunburst of good-will... What bigot would have thunk it?
In one stanza, Bukowski refers to the stereotypes of the negro and suggests that it doesn't matter: "maybe you booze and maybe not." Bukowski's heart is still beaming, welcoming, unguarded, unprejudiced, untouched by cynicism, as big in soul as the man he's writing about, and he's writing about the man of "the big wooden wheels" as an equal. I've never seen Buk express this type of unreserved, exalted emotion to this degree, and his exaltation reclaims the usual pejorative use of the n-word.
Bukowski appears to offer his feeling of goodness in the same direct way of celebration that Whitman does, and he may be 'modeling' this poem after Leaves of Grass. ("O span of youth! ever-push'd elasticity! / O manhood, balanced, florid and full.") The strange irony is that Bukowski uses the n-word but Whitman never did that I know of. In that sense, Bukowski is going beyond Whitman's candor, it's a literary advance, because of the risks he's taking. I feel that one can only do that after absorbing the essence of Whitman. Bukowski creates a powerful reaction in the reader by using those denigrating words in a positive context, words that even Whitman shied away from. If not genius, I think that's the value and joy of Buk's poem, that if he could stick out his hand to greet this man in brotherhood, he wouldn't have hesitated ("something touches between us and you grin").
What dates the poem for me is that, while this is a hymn of praise to a negro, it may still contain the subtle assumption of racial superiority that white people had toward blacks during the 40s and 50s, and the poem could still be offensive on that level for those who notice it. However, the overwhelming sentiment here is that he writing about this man as an equal, and I feel that Bukowski deserves credit for it. That limited view of superiority has somewhat improved over the years. But as of today, a poem like this could never be published without causing an uproar.
That's my appreciation of the whole of it; I'm glad I read it; I speak for no one but myself; and now it's good-bye to Hello! O Sweet Jesus, I'm duckin' for cover.
