and as i was drinking my first cup of coffee this morning, i had a great conversation which reminded me to go read more bukowski. ( i would be remiss if i failed to mention that i was told few women like the man, because of his perceived misogyny.) and as the conversations with this person tend to end, so ended today's: i began to think about new stuff.
which i like, a lot.
this time i was thinking: can my identification as a feminist, and my being completely turned on by bukowski's writing be in agreement, when he is largely viewed as, with great dedication and ferocious glee, spitting routinely into Eye of Woman?
well, to start with, in considering this question, i have to underscore to myself that in fact i am not a slave to agreement--- am not overly concerned with or expectant of consistency, since that just seems stupid--we are complex beings, after all, why not roll with it. also, and along that line, (so, you know, somewhat consistently...), i am not particularly intimidated by the act of dissent--even within my clan--and for another, i am greedy and reserve for myself the right to determine what i like and eventually, maybe even to understand why. but let's look a wee bit deeper into the bukowski attraction/his bukowski magnetism.
well, to start with, in considering this question, i have to underscore to myself that in fact i am not a slave to agreement--- am not overly concerned with or expectant of consistency, since that just seems stupid--we are complex beings, after all, why not roll with it. also, and along that line, (so, you know, somewhat consistently...), i am not particularly intimidated by the act of dissent--even within my clan--and for another, i am greedy and reserve for myself the right to determine what i like and eventually, maybe even to understand why. but let's look a wee bit deeper into the bukowski attraction/his bukowski magnetism.
i love bukowski because he spoke of the it of it, shamelessly, fearlessly, and (his) truly. these are things i admire. i think he spoke of love and pretty things with equal bluntness and appreciation--it wasn't that his slant was on the ugly, vulgar or savage nature of things only--or even that he was vulgar and savage only--it's that he took the noose and tried it on, and then stared right at a person and described the sensation. and maybe with equal veracity of style he would stare right at a person and describe why he didn't kick the chair out from under himself. it's the staring right a a person and saying it that people dislike. i do like. just tell me how it is, tell me what you really think. then we're in the clear.
so i was looking at some of his letters, and look: this is why i like bukowski. the motherfucker sings, is why.
==
To William Packard, Editor of New York Quarterly
4/17/92 12:15 AM Hello Wm Packard:
Huh. Listen, I know that you can never print all the accepted poems on your backlog. First, it would freak all the good souls of the universe. And, second, there are other writers. Huh.
Yet, I can't resist, in spite of knowing all this, sending you a shit-balloon poem that might explode into the multi-faced reign of ultimate godliness. Huh. Huh, huh?
Still, some concern on "dumb night", for such a poem is considered anti-social enlightenment . . . such as a drunk vapid woman? Impossible and unfair. There are no longer any drunken sluts. There are only stupid, mean white men. There are no vicious homosexuals or lesbians or bisexuals. And there are no longer any stupid, mean black men. Although there might be some stupid, mean yellow men or brown men, depending upon the political climate and the local of the moment. Each only deserves attack and derision in direct relationship to any force they might apply to our survival. Most successful commercial writers know what to attack and when. And even the Artsy-Fartsies who are touched upon with the Nobel and Pulitzer prizes, they too are screened for any dangerous signals of individuality. But how about . . . ? you say. How about them? They too sucked to the signal of the moment, the edict, the on-coming demand of thought control. They were only the forerunners of the obvious.
But getting back to small matters, it has always been curious to me that my writing has been attacked for portraying others as I have seen them, but my writing has never been criticized when I ended up as the jacknape. This could be art, they say, he is calling himself a fucking fool. They like that, it takes the heat off of their frightened asses.
We are living in a terrible climate now. Everybody is waiting to be insulted. I think that I believe more than almost anybody in the right to be whatever you want to be. In fact, I have probably worked more directly from that premise than most and have en ded up in any number of hells for doing so. But I did this from a singular stance, most alone, and not buddied up by a jolly group in safe chorus.
So often now, it is not so much a group demanding their rights as it is a group wanting more than their rights, it is almost a tribal on-surging, subconsciously or perhaps even consciously wanting to be top dog and screw all else. Also, there are those within each group who are simply psychotics who want to be seen and heard in parades or any other damned place or time.
As a writer, one must write what one sees and feels regardless of the consequences. In fact, the more the consequences the more one is goaded into going for it. Some call it madness, I call it near-truth. You know, there is nothing more entertaining, funnier than near-truth because you see it, read it so seldom. It hits you with a refreshing blast, it runs up the arms, into the head, it gets giddy, god damn, god damn, so rare, so lovely. I saw some of it in Celine, in Dostoevsky, in Hamsun, I started laughing as I read them, it was such a joy
In our age, the only safe target for the writer is the white heterosexual male. You can make him a murderer, a child-rapist, a motherfucker. Nobody protests. Not even the white heterosexual male. He's used to it. Also, things like "White men can't dance," "White men can't jump," "White men have no sense of rhythm", etc.. What is happening here might be a near-truth, still it is mostly mouthed by white women and promoted by white men in the media. Am I racist? Tell me, how many non-whites have you had in your home or in your room lately?
Well, we go on and on. Probably a certain psychosis working here. I hope so. It seems to give one an edge in the working place. Still the poem "dumb night' got me to thinking about this and about the reaction you'd get if you published it. Yet, many of us have had nights like this one. It's just a place within a place, something that explodes into the air, and for all its grossness there is a certain demented glamour of two people trapped together in a world that has never worked for them and never will. There is no insult to man or woman intended but if there is some insult there, then fine, it belongs.
Well, I'm drinking, have been or wouldn't have gone on so long. Basically, only want to say that at this time it is tough for the writer who wants to put it down as it is, or was. The 90's have far more strictures than the 50's ever had. We've gone back, not so much in how we think but in what we can say. Each Age has borne its own contriticions [?contradictions] but the end of the 20th century is a particularly sad one. We've lost our guts, our gamble, our heart. Listen, believe me, when we say it and say it true, the women will love it, the blacks, the browns, the yellows, the greens, the reds and the purples will love it, and the homosexuals and the lesbians and all the in between will love it. Let's not crap ourselves, we are different but we are one. We bring death to each other and death brings it to us. Did you ever see that flattened cat on the freeway as you drove by at 70 m.p.h.? That's us, baby. And I scream to the skies that there should be no way, no word, no limit. Just a roll of the dice, the tilting of the dark white light and the ability to laugh, a few times, at what has trapped us like this.
Buk
[This letter is included in the third volume of the letters of Charles Bukowski, edited by Seamus Cooney, from Black Sparrow Press, 1999.]
