When did you discover Bukowski?

O

october bird of death

How did you first discover Bukowski?

How did you first discover Bukowski and what effect did his writing have on you?

I was looking through the poetry section of my local library and came across slouching towards nirvana. I took the book home and read it from cover to cover in one sitting. I agree with a post Black Swan had posted in another thread. Charles Bukowski will be a good friend. Never had I read another person's work that I was so comforted by. Whenever I feel confused by the world and my surroundings I turn to Bukowski for comfort.
 
bakeowski

bakeowski

i was a falling down drunk waiter, (free mimosas at brunch) and a regular customer gave me a copy of play the piano drunk....after watching me stagger around the dining room with eggs...
i loved it of course and excited called my dad the engliish professor to tell him about this great author i found and his two word reply was "ooh fuck"
he had several bukowskis hidden in his office away from our prying eyes....
 
S

Stavrogin

bakeowski said:
i was a falling down drunk waiter, (free mimosas at brunch) and a regular customer gave me a copy of play the piano drunk....after watching me stagger around the dining room with eggs...
i loved it of course and excited called my dad the engliish professor to tell him about this great author i found and his two word reply was "ooh fuck"
he had several bukowskis hidden in his office away from our prying eyes....
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Well, that sounds so cliche. Drunk and staggering IT MUST be the hand of Buk in your wayward youthful wanderlust - Daddy hiding the nasties from junior to keep him from the serpent's bite in Eden. What phoney threads you weave, young posey party kid-nik. Drinking a beer doesn't make you a kindred spirit to Bukowski. I feel for those that have been on this site for way longer than me and get nasty with the stupid shit people post. I'm a slow learner but in time I learn.
 
esart

esart

esart.com
Founding member
octoberbirdofdeath said:
Please excuse the first portion of this post, I am a noob and thought that I was starting a new thread. I would like to know though what effect his work had on you.
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I felt like I possibly made sense in this world... like there was beauty in pieces of shit like me. I wished Bukowski was my dad. I pretended in a way he was. He gave me courage to be an artist and stay scraggly.
 
S

Stavrogin

Gerard K H Love said:
Stavrogin has discovered his Bukowski teeth.

Don't worry about the baked one.
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Generally not my way to be belligerent (unless done so tongue-in-cheek) but I read up on Bake's bog of a blog and ran across a comment of his that said this site wasn't a total waste of time. I can only surmise he meant this site is only viable if he were here spreading his festive fantasies. World War II wasn't a total waste of time - Bake and Julie Andrews got to spin around the Austrian Alps singing The Sound of Music.
 
J

johnwayne12

I picked up Ham on Rye when I was 14 because I had just read The Cather in the Rye and I read somewhere that Ham on Rye was Bukowski's reponse to it. Anyways, it seemed interesting and I saw it at the bookstore so I picked it up and loved it. Still my favorite Bukowski writing.
 
Rekrab

Rekrab

Usually wrong.
esart said:
I felt like I possibly made sense in this world... like there was beauty in pieces of shit like me. I wished Bukowski was my dad. I pretended in a way he was. He gave me courage to be an artist and stay scraggly.
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I once did a drawing of Bukowski for a broadside, and when it was done and printed, I realized that it looked more like my father than Bukowski! My literary father, I guess.
 
nervas

nervas

more crickets than friends
esart said:
I never read Catheter in the Rye. Is it any good?
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Well I read it! And it was signed by the dude who puts catheter's on for paitents at the local hospital! haha, good read. I'll probably put it up on ebay soon though, need the money.
 
nervas

nervas

more crickets than friends
I had a subscription to NME for years, loved that mag, but it's too expensive now. I missed that review, was it new, recent? That's cool that they did the review. Also, was it on the book, or the movie?
 
yojimbo

yojimbo

I discovered Bukowski when i was looking at some trivia about Eraserhead, which is Bukowski favourite's film and mine too, then i watched Barfly and i got hooked. I thought this guy has style, he does whatever he wants to do, and always did in a very relaxed manner, reminded me The Dude from Big Lebowski.
 
O

owski

I first read Buk in the 70's when he was published in Hustler, they also interviewed him like a mock playboy interview. I was hooked and now I collect. Anyone have any gems.
 
B

beatbrad71

I vaguelly remember it as being years ago and I was working in a punk record shop and one of our regular customers bought in one of Buk's books and practically begged me to borrow it. I hadn't read anything in years since I finished my A level English but I borrowed it, read it and then the next day went out and bought South of No North and loved that too. Now all these years later I've read a whole load more by Buk and fallen in love with books to the extent that I threw away a lovely life in London to go to a terrible university in the Midlands, UK to study US Lit at postgrad level. It's all down to Bukowski and that chance encounter in a record shop in London with one of his books.
 
Ponder

Ponder

"So fuck Doubleday Doran"
RIP
beatbrad71 said:
Now all these years later I've read a whole load more by Buk and fallen in love with books to the extent that I threw away a lovely life in London to go to a terrible university in the Midlands, UK to study US Lit at postgrad level.
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I read: that I threw away a lovely wife in London.

I'm not kidding.
 
Ponder

Ponder

"So fuck Doubleday Doran"
RIP
Hey, I found my lady 5,449.89 kilometers away from where I live.
There's always hope!

And: she paints Bukowski, (oil paintings.)
 
adrianbkelly

adrianbkelly

About 12 years ago, I saw a hardback copy of "Play the piano drunk..." in my local bookshop and just loved the title. I didn't have any money, though, and didn't buy it, which I still regret now. A few months later, I bought a copy of "Betting on the Muse", started reading it there and than and have been hooked ever since.
 
silent at the window

silent at the window

Four years ago when I realized there had to be more to poetry than the previous 20yrs I had been writing. He made me think... laugh... cry... get angry... and realize that I was the poet, not what I did on paper. He taught me to be happy with me.
 
Jaqdaw

Jaqdaw

oh back in 92 or so for me notes of a dirty old man ..stood out amid all the staid penguin covers in a north dublin book shop ..carried it around wiyth me for months afterwards..bought his stuff real quick then..musta paid for some of that wine he enjoyed of an evening..broke my heart to hear of his death..the only sane voice I knew of, free of standard literary stylings that put you to sleep. Love to you Bukowski
 
Harald

Harald

mjp said:
I had correspondence with someone from Austria who said Carl Weissner's translations (the ones that put Bukowski on the international map) are simplistic and riddled with errors. The "official" biography printed in the back of every book lists such jobs as sports-reporter(?) and pimp(!). So you have to wonder what he did to the poetry and prose.
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I think Carl just further worked out the Buk-persona that Hank started by himself,
on these geman books there was the (outright fake) Jean Genet quote of describing Buk as the "greatest writer of America", too
Carl hit some poems quite good, and Hank sure was satisfied with the economic results,
he even thanked his translators in one of his poems,
dedicated one of his books to Carl Weissner

I started with them, too and it was quite ok,
but I was hooked from the day when I found
"Dangling in the tournefortia", the english version,
that's now nearly 30 yrs ago,

there was a real atmosphere in this book,
and I realized that here was a poet doing his stuff,
no sports-reporter, pimp or slaughter-house butcher as they said elsewhere.

and MJP, I always like it when you put away that Hobo-image from Buk,
for me, even his drinking image is much overrated,
e.g. his liver was in excellent shape when he had a test for leukemia,
and in the Europe of the 70's he wouldn't have been regarded as an alcoholic anyway.
 
Jennifer

Jennifer

I discovered Bukowski as a sixteen year old babe at a borders, I picked him off the shelf (People look like Flowers). It was awhile longer until I picked up his novels, but I found tons in used bookstores. Like most of you I have 2 copies of the Buk books I like, theivery happens.
I'm glad I "found him" young, I think knowing his books & the women he loved helped me stick to my guns. I owe a portion of my courage & confidence to his literature. Reading about these real women being so reckless (is there one I can blame for my stint as an escort, seriously, for the "adventure"??), and knowing there are men like Buk out there was/is good for my development- this is very very sappy!!!!!!!
 
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