Hello everybody,
in the beginning of the 1990ies, when I was about 25, I sometimes hung around in the public library in Flensburg, Germany. One day I entered the shelves with 'B' and discovered an american writer named Charles Bukowski, translated into German. There were several books of him, containing novels and shortstories. I'm not entirely sure but I think I started with Der Mann mit der Ledertasche (Post Office). It was entertaining. It was different. I borrowed all of Bukowski I could get there: Factotum, Women and two or three books with shortstories. Never read something like that (The Fiend was one of the stories) and within a few weeks I'd sucked it up, all of it.
As I said, it was entertaining, I enjoyed it, that Chinaski seemed to be an ordinary man with ordinary problems, a living man who needs to drink and piss, to fuck and masturbate, to curse and shit. I liked it. But I wasn't hooked. Not yet.
Some 20 years later, in Feb 2013, I returned to Bukowski. This time I decided to make an approach to his poetry. And I didn't want the translated stuff anymore. So I ordered Burning in Water Drowning in Flame. It hit me. Bukowski knows how to put down a line: funny and offensive and always real. Poems like the twins, lilies in my brain, the singular self, mama, no.6, something for the touts... That's art, I thought. That's the way poetry should be, at least for me. After that one I purchased all of his poetry books up to Dangling in the Tournefortia, plus The Roominghouse Madrigals. Recently I've read Ham On Rye, for the first time. I'm really enthusiastic about Ham. 58 chapters of...poetry! Yes, that man was a poet, also in his novels and shortstories.
Now, at the age of 48, I'm addicted to Bukowski. Reading at least a few lines every day got almost as normal and necessary as eating food. Bukowski is a kind of food.
Nothing else to say. Just one thing, this is a great site.
in the beginning of the 1990ies, when I was about 25, I sometimes hung around in the public library in Flensburg, Germany. One day I entered the shelves with 'B' and discovered an american writer named Charles Bukowski, translated into German. There were several books of him, containing novels and shortstories. I'm not entirely sure but I think I started with Der Mann mit der Ledertasche (Post Office). It was entertaining. It was different. I borrowed all of Bukowski I could get there: Factotum, Women and two or three books with shortstories. Never read something like that (The Fiend was one of the stories) and within a few weeks I'd sucked it up, all of it.
As I said, it was entertaining, I enjoyed it, that Chinaski seemed to be an ordinary man with ordinary problems, a living man who needs to drink and piss, to fuck and masturbate, to curse and shit. I liked it. But I wasn't hooked. Not yet.
Some 20 years later, in Feb 2013, I returned to Bukowski. This time I decided to make an approach to his poetry. And I didn't want the translated stuff anymore. So I ordered Burning in Water Drowning in Flame. It hit me. Bukowski knows how to put down a line: funny and offensive and always real. Poems like the twins, lilies in my brain, the singular self, mama, no.6, something for the touts... That's art, I thought. That's the way poetry should be, at least for me. After that one I purchased all of his poetry books up to Dangling in the Tournefortia, plus The Roominghouse Madrigals. Recently I've read Ham On Rye, for the first time. I'm really enthusiastic about Ham. 58 chapters of...poetry! Yes, that man was a poet, also in his novels and shortstories.
Now, at the age of 48, I'm addicted to Bukowski. Reading at least a few lines every day got almost as normal and necessary as eating food. Bukowski is a kind of food.
Nothing else to say. Just one thing, this is a great site.