See, I'm not sure about this argument that Bukowski is primarily a poet. That's where much of his best writing is but the novels are underrated, especially Factotum. Its form is amazing. It isn't quite a novel, actually, isn't quite a story cycle. It's a mishmash of short stories that works where the short stories can fail. (I was a bit too tough on the stories as well. He brought worth to every form, but overall I'd place them beneath the poetry or whatever you want to call it, beneath the novels and letters.) That's the thing with the poems, I'd say. So many are amazing, but to many people they aren't quite poems. It's a semantic argument, really. The name in my original post known primarily as a poet is Larkin. Even he said that he considered his own work not really poetry. Even in terms of free verse, Bukowski's stuff is so far removed from the usual ideas of what poetry is that he's either redefined it or it isn't poetry. It means the same thing ultimately, and I'm not bothered which idea people choose. I'd say Bukowski is primarily a writer, though.
Where does Bukowski stand among 20th century writers?
- Thread starter beerbelly666
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"...his poetry is not distinguishable from his prose..." First, Bukowski wrote poetry in LOTS of different styles. Read a book or two from his beginning, middle and late periods and you'll see. Take a look particularly at his very last poems. And also take a look at Walt Whitman: "A child came to me and said what is the grass..." Whitman breaks from European expectatations of rhyme, meter a century before Bukowski. Bukowski is a continuation of a tradition as well as an original.
Robbie wrote:
OK, but when you read the Illiad you read it like a novel don't you?
Thing is the Illiad wasn't originally written down, it was transfered orally.
The rhymes help the memory.
Rayson wrote:
The usual ideas? Now there's an argument I can't refute.
If you have problems with the word poetry just call Buk's free verse for aphorisms, flash fiction, musings og whatever. Thing is: These "poems" are where he execels and where his main commitment lies.
If you ask me that is...
OK, but when you read the Illiad you read it like a novel don't you?
Thing is the Illiad wasn't originally written down, it was transfered orally.
The rhymes help the memory.
Rayson wrote:
The usual ideas? Now there's an argument I can't refute.
If you have problems with the word poetry just call Buk's free verse for aphorisms, flash fiction, musings og whatever. Thing is: These "poems" are where he execels and where his main commitment lies.
If you ask me that is...
Erik, I never read the whole thing. I had a nibble on it alright.
I did read Paradise Lost though, many times. Now there's a poem...
Bukowski is a poet, not in the strictest sense of the word though. As you know he was never accepted by the academia, not that it rankled him too much.
I used to have most of his poetry, Betting on the Muse, Open all night, etc... My favorite collection, though, has to be The Last Night Of The Earth Poems. It resonated a lot with my younger, angrier, misanthropic self. And it made me laugh. My ex has most of my old books now, sadly.
What is a poet "in the strictest sense of the word"? You cite Pound, Thomas and Yeats earlier. They are all "canonical" poets, perhaps, but they are completely different. If you were to ask twenty well-read people how they would "rank" them, I bet you would get different answers. Some people hate Pound because he was an anti-Semitic fascist so he would immediately be disqualified. Even with these three, you would probably get severe disagreement. When I was a child, Robert Frost was considered among the "greatest" American poets. But something happened. Suddenly in the Sixties, everyone was saying Wallace Stevens was in the first rank. Why? Because Harold Bloom at Yale said so? Who decides these things exactly? Just wondering what your "strict definition" of "poet" is....
Well how good they are is subjective. Fact is, though, he is not recognized by the literary establishment, he is not taught in universities, and his work is not generally in poetry anthologies. Why not? Your use of inverted commas is suggesting some undercurrent of argument. I merely said he is not in the same canon as the aforementioned poets. I am not saying he is not a poet. If he is judged by standards of the literary establishment, the guy doesn't figure....why is that?
It's as much to do with his content as his style, maybe even more so. A lot of his stuff reads like an open wound. He hits too close to the bone for most people. This is why I like him though. But if someone says he is the greatest writer who ever lived, I would ask them if they were having a laugh?
It's as much to do with his content as his style, maybe even more so. A lot of his stuff reads like an open wound. He hits too close to the bone for most people. This is why I like him though. But if someone says he is the greatest writer who ever lived, I would ask them if they were having a laugh?
mjp
Founding member
Your use of a question mark is suggesting that you are not sure of your last statement. Yet you appear so confident in your portrait picture there. What a cruel dichotomy.
We should ask some professors somewhere what they think about your uncertainty. I only trust the opinions of professors and other limp geldings.
We should ask some professors somewhere what they think about your uncertainty. I only trust the opinions of professors and other limp geldings.
I'm asking a deeper question about canon formation. Who decides who gets to be in the canon? How do you define the "literary establishment"? In America--I don't know about Ireland--it has been White, East Coast, generally genteel University Folk who have decided these things. And if the decisions are supposedly "for all time"--for example my citing of Robert Frost as one of the "great" American poets when I was a kid in the Fifties--why do the people considered "great" change every twenty years? Same thing with Hemingway. He was considered #1 and then Faulkner displaced him. And what about women, Black, Native American writers? They weren't even in the "canon" at all. So the same mechanism was in operation for "working class" writers like Bukowski. He was kept out of the "canon" I would argue for largely extra-literary reasons. By the way, his work IS entering the anthologies. David Lehman includes five of his poems in the Oxford Book of American Poetry....And he is slowly making his way into anthologies in the college book market as well.
jordan
lothario speedwagon
it's such a ridiculous, facile argument to say that bukowski is "too real" for the academic literary canon. the reason he's not part of the poetry canon is that his poetry doesn't benefit from academic criticism. in general, books discussing his writing are really boring, because they don't tell you anything you couldn't figure out on your own. moreover, bukowski was an iconoclast, and not being representative of a particular movement, there's no reason to teach him in a survey class either. you'll find him on university reading lists for courses on labor movements, because he makes sense there.
i think it's absurd to say that bukowski is the greatest writer who ever lived, but i think it is equally absurd to say that anyone else is, either. i think he's one of the great writers of the 20th century, but trying to pick one great writer of all time is a fool's game. would you perhaps stop posting if everyone acknowledged the incredibly non-controversial point you seem to be hammering at that bukowski was a very good writer but not the greatest writer in history?
i think it's absurd to say that bukowski is the greatest writer who ever lived, but i think it is equally absurd to say that anyone else is, either. i think he's one of the great writers of the 20th century, but trying to pick one great writer of all time is a fool's game. would you perhaps stop posting if everyone acknowledged the incredibly non-controversial point you seem to be hammering at that bukowski was a very good writer but not the greatest writer in history?
MJP -- I am very sure of my last statement, it's a rhetorical question. A gelding by definition is limp btw.
David -- You are clearing your throat a bit now on this point. I am talking about what is, u are speculating on what ought to be. Let's keep it at what is (for the time being anyway)...he is not regarded highly in the context of these other poets. Joyce was working class, London was a tramp for most of his life, Patrick Kavanagh was a vagabond. These writers are in the canon. It's not all black and white.
David -- You are clearing your throat a bit now on this point. I am talking about what is, u are speculating on what ought to be. Let's keep it at what is (for the time being anyway)...he is not regarded highly in the context of these other poets. Joyce was working class, London was a tramp for most of his life, Patrick Kavanagh was a vagabond. These writers are in the canon. It's not all black and white.
This argument is hotting up. I like David's Harold Bloom argument. O'Malley's open wound bit points to a good reason why he doesn't tend to turn up on university literature courses. I put bukowski into Google to get here and found this call for a reappraisal of him as poet:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2007/sep/05/bukowski
I read this ages ago and forgot. OK. This is how I feel. He is a poet. He did redefine poetry. (This article must've helped validate how I feel. Pathetic but there you go.) It points out Hot Water Music as a decent short story collection too. I've overlooked that one.
Sorry, David, your latest reply has turned up while I was putting my thoughts together here. Great stuff! Especially the news - news to out-of-touch me - about the anthology appearances etc. I know plenty of people won't give a crap whether Bukowski gains acceptance from any kind of establishment point of view, but it gets on my nerves that he's so often left out. The canon is always in flux too, you're right, and it has more to do to make amends for its skewed perspective. (Is it just me, or is Raymond Carver's reputation slipping? That's a shame if so. The extent of his editor's influence is a shock, though.)
It's busy here now! jordan, the academic community can literally critique a corn flakes box. They'll have no problem with Bukowski.
I keep trying to think of "the greatest writer" now. Impossible game. The closest I can get is greatest writers, plural. You need more than one, and even then the word "greatest" doesn't sit nearly as well as "favourite". I get the idea I'm the only one who's going to waste a minute's thought on this.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2007/sep/05/bukowski
I read this ages ago and forgot. OK. This is how I feel. He is a poet. He did redefine poetry. (This article must've helped validate how I feel. Pathetic but there you go.) It points out Hot Water Music as a decent short story collection too. I've overlooked that one.
Sorry, David, your latest reply has turned up while I was putting my thoughts together here. Great stuff! Especially the news - news to out-of-touch me - about the anthology appearances etc. I know plenty of people won't give a crap whether Bukowski gains acceptance from any kind of establishment point of view, but it gets on my nerves that he's so often left out. The canon is always in flux too, you're right, and it has more to do to make amends for its skewed perspective. (Is it just me, or is Raymond Carver's reputation slipping? That's a shame if so. The extent of his editor's influence is a shock, though.)
It's busy here now! jordan, the academic community can literally critique a corn flakes box. They'll have no problem with Bukowski.
I keep trying to think of "the greatest writer" now. Impossible game. The closest I can get is greatest writers, plural. You need more than one, and even then the word "greatest" doesn't sit nearly as well as "favourite". I get the idea I'm the only one who's going to waste a minute's thought on this.
mjp
Founding member
Huh - and here I thought that a sentence couldn't be both a statement and a question. I'll be darned! I'm uneducated though, so I had to look it up on wikipedia.
Yes, it's a thrill a minute, isn't it? (An example of a rhetorical question, for those unclear on the concept.)
For everyone who finds this sort of spiral of nothingness engrossing, may you build a ladder to the stars and climb on every rung. That is my sincere wish for your continued happiness.
I love you all.
wasn't that Trent Reznor's first band? or Stiv Bator's after Lords of the New Church? all this misuse of the rhetorical has me confused...
that and Robbie changing his argument with every subsequent post but telling us he's maintaining his original position. "Bukowski is a poet that doesn't write poetry, but he's a poet not like Pound or Thomas, but a poet nonetheless that doesn't really write poetry. have you seen my canon? that's a statement, not a rhetorical question, unless you meant my aphorism, which is not limp."
I know you countered it with love, but "spiral of nothingness" is a bit tough. It might all be obvious and/or by-the-by to most, but it's helped me, particularly David's stuff. Those posts must at least be of interest to some others too. I apologise if I've barged in in the wrong way. I read this thread a while ago and it's been on my mind. I know it's a forum so it's the law to be touchy, but I just can't be bothered: when I said "it's busy here now", it really was busy relatively and it was just my way of saying I was having trouble keeping up. I'm a slow writer (yet another reason to envy Bukowski) and three new comments appeared while I was about to post.
I've just followed your "Wikipedia" link. Alright, that's spot on. I'm new here, but I have occasionally met that sort in real life. I flatter myself that I just sound odd rather than like one of those. (I'm not the right age, in the right profession and I'm from utterly the wrong background to be one of those. OK, yeah, in many ways I am, rather than just sound, odd.)
PS Hello and don't worry, you won't even have to ban me for endless rambles: this amount of activity will be unusual behaviour for me.
I've just followed your "Wikipedia" link. Alright, that's spot on. I'm new here, but I have occasionally met that sort in real life. I flatter myself that I just sound odd rather than like one of those. (I'm not the right age, in the right profession and I'm from utterly the wrong background to be one of those. OK, yeah, in many ways I am, rather than just sound, odd.)
PS Hello and don't worry, you won't even have to ban me for endless rambles: this amount of activity will be unusual behaviour for me.
Rayson! deep breaths, buddy. You're doing fine.
mjp
Founding member
It wasn't directed at you.
And the spiral of nothingness has nothing to do with any of this being obvious or anything else, it has to do with me being bored by "intellectual discourse." That's my shortcoming, not yours. So don't sweat the small stuff. As the kids say.
Oh right yeah!
Yeah, I suppose it's the way everybody knows it to be really: there is no consensus. As liberating as it is depressing. I've just decided to try to give up thinking in terms of "this doesn't work as a poem" or "this doesn't work as a short story". It's just whether I like it or not (which unfortunately probably is influenced by what I've been taught those things should be). Some of the general "rules" are that the short story develops out of character, the number of characters is few, the action takes place in a small number of scenes over a small amount of time and, most important, the writer shows rather than tells what happens (eg rather than write "Fred was angry with his wife", you write "Fred threw his wife out the window"). Tick all those boxes carefully enough and of course you end up with a shit story. Bukowski often seems to smash those kinds of rules, which is fine in theory. Getting the better of rules is what it's all about, beating them a sexy idea. I dunno, though. I'm more likely to go "oh" at the end of one of his stories and much more likely to go "wow" at the end of one of his poems no matter whether somebody else would call it a poem or not (I love many of the stories I've read, though). I'm about to order Hot Water Music, so I look forward to that.
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Bukfan
"The law is wrong; I am right"
I think he's written some great short stories, but he's also written some not so great ones too, especially in the 'Erections..' collection (later published in two separate books). That might have to do with the fact that many of those stories where written right before deadline for the 'Open City' mag. Some of them are quite funny though.
I think there's also some good stories in 'Hot Water Music', and in 'South Of No North' too. The latter is probably my favorite collection.
I guess the hit and miss thing goes for his poems too, but how can it be otherwise considering the thousands of poems he wrote.
I think there's also some good stories in 'Hot Water Music', and in 'South Of No North' too. The latter is probably my favorite collection.
I guess the hit and miss thing goes for his poems too, but how can it be otherwise considering the thousands of poems he wrote.
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Look what reading leads to. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, watch more TV. Reading Dante and Milton never got me laid. Fuck 'em. Reading Buk sort of cost me a girlfriend - fuck you PBA. And yet I may be better off in the long run. And I'm not sure what this random nonsense even means as it relates to this thread.
Of course, being a Buk fan makes me a bit biased..only time will tell where he ranks among 20th century writers...the fact that his prodigious output encompassed just about every literary and artistic medium including poems, stories, essays, letters, interviews, drawings, sketches, paintings, reviews (did I miss any?) augurs well on his behalf--considering --in my humble opinion--that he was proficient in all mediums. But to me his Short Stories and Poems (as a whole) are what will secure his continued high ranking among writers in the years to come.
bukforever
bukforever
[To John William Corrington]
February 14, 1961
Now, Bill, since we are discussing poetry and what makes it or doesn't make it [...] Mr. Vaughan and the class professors make much of the fact that PROSE IS CREEPING INTO POETRY! God damn it, here we work with our IMAGES and some guy comes along and says...all that matters is a red wheelbarrow in the back yard, gathering rain. [...] the prose statement in a poem seems to bother the editors ("This is excellent, but it is not a poem!") and it seems to bother the Vaughans and the professors. But I say, why not? What the hell's wrong with a 6 or 7 or 37 line long prose statement that is broken into the readable advantage and clearness of the poem-form? As long as it says what it must and says it as well or better than the mould and sound that says THIS IS A POEM, SO LISTEN TO ME. What's wrong with a 7 line short story or a 37 line novel which is placed within the poem-form, if this form makes it read better than it would if chunked together as a regular sentence or paragraph of regular English prose? Must we always DEFINE AND CLASSIFY what is done? Can't, for God's sake, can't ART be ART without a program and numbers?
... any more questions?
February 14, 1961
Now, Bill, since we are discussing poetry and what makes it or doesn't make it [...] Mr. Vaughan and the class professors make much of the fact that PROSE IS CREEPING INTO POETRY! God damn it, here we work with our IMAGES and some guy comes along and says...all that matters is a red wheelbarrow in the back yard, gathering rain. [...] the prose statement in a poem seems to bother the editors ("This is excellent, but it is not a poem!") and it seems to bother the Vaughans and the professors. But I say, why not? What the hell's wrong with a 6 or 7 or 37 line long prose statement that is broken into the readable advantage and clearness of the poem-form? As long as it says what it must and says it as well or better than the mould and sound that says THIS IS A POEM, SO LISTEN TO ME. What's wrong with a 7 line short story or a 37 line novel which is placed within the poem-form, if this form makes it read better than it would if chunked together as a regular sentence or paragraph of regular English prose? Must we always DEFINE AND CLASSIFY what is done? Can't, for God's sake, can't ART be ART without a program and numbers?
... any more questions?
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MJP -- Just noticed your little wikipedia link there. I'm a sheet metal worker and I left school when I was 16. I thought we ere all having a pleasant discourse.It's a bit puerile and sad now to be honest. That's what fascists do: when they don't agree with something they put a label on it, propagandizing the whole thing so people perceive in terms of good and bad....in this case "professor" being "bad".
If you're still reading Bukowski in your 30s and you don't read it tongue in cheek, grow the fu*k up...
If you're still reading Bukowski in your 30s and you don't read it tongue in cheek, grow the fu*k up...
People were being a little too defensive, Robbie, but that's understandable. What you've just said is far too defensive, though. Imagine we were all in front of each other. People would disagree, but 77.2% chance we'd do it in a more friendly way. Bukowski was more layered than you give him credit for: he played with his image and it was often meant to be tongue-in-cheek, yes, but it was much more than that. His writing looks simple, but it's more than that. (Yep, just an opinion. I could have a go at trying to convince you, but it probably wouldn't work and it would probably bore you either way.)
I had a flick through Erections (funny phrase) after my last post on this thread. I can't say the stories I glanced over even seemed to break the "rules" that I mentioned, particularly hard. Some of the worst stories turn up in Erections though (funny phrase), I think Bukfan is right, also in that it's because they're rushed.
I had a flick through Erections (funny phrase) after my last post on this thread. I can't say the stories I glanced over even seemed to break the "rules" that I mentioned, particularly hard. Some of the worst stories turn up in Erections though (funny phrase), I think Bukfan is right, also in that it's because they're rushed.
You appear to have a very low opinion of the literary worth of Bukowski's writing, and by extension a low opinion of those who do find value in it. Sheet metal workers can clearly peer down their noses as well as anyone.
There's no point to this discussion if you just want to tell us that Bukowski's writing is for teen-aged boys who want to drink and fuck - you're wasting your time.
Anyway, opinions are like arseholes they say.
bospress.net
www.bospress.net
I'm amazed that he held out so long before insulting Bukowski & most of his readers (unless they are under 30.) I'm also surprised that he waited so long to accuse this board of being Fascist. What number is this on the troll scale?
Bill
Bill