mjp
Founding member
53 years ago today, Bukowski wrote this letter to the Webbs in New Orleans. It was a Wednesday, and he was living in the apartment on DeLongpre with Frances Smith and 3 month old Marina Louise Bukowski (six days later he would write a letter to the Webbs that said, "3 egos struggling for domination of space of soul and so on. I think Marina's winning.").
He says he is sending the Webbs two new poems, and asks about Something For The Touts, The Nuns, The Grocery Clerks And You, which he didn't remember, but which would appear four months later in Crucifix in a Deathhand. (and also in four other books and two magazines over the years). He would read Something For The Touts, The Nuns, The Grocery Clerks And You on two home recordings in 1966 and 1967, and at his first out of town reading at Bellevue Community College in 1970. Not a bad life for a poem he didn't even remember writing.
He was having problems at the post office job (a few months later he would be prescribed Librium, an anti-anxiety drug, for vertigo he was experiencing at work), and was annoyed by the construction of the Hollywood Riviera apartment building next door. His old Underwood typewriter, which he'd been using since 1957 was about to give up the ghost, to be replaced by a cheap used portable typewriter that he didn't like, and eventually a Remington, which he uses for the rest of the 1960s.
This letter is on the manuscript pages, but this is a bigger scan. Click to enlarge, and all of that. AIR MAIL!
He says he is sending the Webbs two new poems, and asks about Something For The Touts, The Nuns, The Grocery Clerks And You, which he didn't remember, but which would appear four months later in Crucifix in a Deathhand. (and also in four other books and two magazines over the years). He would read Something For The Touts, The Nuns, The Grocery Clerks And You on two home recordings in 1966 and 1967, and at his first out of town reading at Bellevue Community College in 1970. Not a bad life for a poem he didn't even remember writing.
He was having problems at the post office job (a few months later he would be prescribed Librium, an anti-anxiety drug, for vertigo he was experiencing at work), and was annoyed by the construction of the Hollywood Riviera apartment building next door. His old Underwood typewriter, which he'd been using since 1957 was about to give up the ghost, to be replaced by a cheap used portable typewriter that he didn't like, and eventually a Remington, which he uses for the rest of the 1960s.
This letter is on the manuscript pages, but this is a bigger scan. Click to enlarge, and all of that. AIR MAIL!
