A discussion about '2 a.m.' (1 Viewer)

[Gerard K H Love]

This poem has a lot going on so what do you have to say?
Click this:https://bukowskiforum.com/showpost.php?p=83883&postcount=867 or that up there.

 

[Marx Renoffski]

That was brilliant. Very passionate. One of his better ones I think...
Haven't got a clue what Shostakovich sounds like but I will surely check him out.

 

[Mark73]

Brilliant, because it contains so much I can hardly summ it up in my own words.

"this is the flame in the eye of the vulture, this is the purple ocean of glory" jumped into my head to stay there.

Subleasers like these are always welcome.

 

[slimedog]

I agree with that line as a favorite, also the line about saving his own befuddled ass, great poem all around.

 

[number6horse]

Just to be a contrarian, I think he covered the same ground much better in me and Faulkner.

 

[Gerard K H Love]

#6 did you notice these lines:

and so
this is just another poem about drinking and listening to
music

repeat, right?

but look at Faulkner, he not only said the same thing over and
over but he said the same
place

They all repeat themselves. Besides, I think he liked Shostakovitch more than he liked Faulkner plus the major differences between music and literature.
But we all have a different way of looking at things, sometimes the same repeated line can mean something different to us within the same poem or song. I guess I'm just that unstable.

 

[poptop]

Bukowski's is a tremendous poem of 'gratitude' -- perhaps one of his most direct and best. None of us can get through the trial on our own power alone. Sounds like he was a drowning man at the time and the sounds of Dimitri brought him back from the depths. Thanks for posting this lesser known treasure. Bukowski appeared to have little to shield him from the banalities of life, and music help lift and fortify him. Perhaps we all know the feeling.

 

[Smearski]

"Walking through the alone night". That's what it's all about right there.

 

[frankD]

well i guess this is why this site will have a limited utility for me - most stand to close like icarus

one poem is like looking at a small section of a TV screen - those few pixels will not show the entire picture - so IMHO any artist must display his entire body of work in order to be evaluated in total and by relation to each piece individually

i think bukowski would agree based on his observations in nature

one bird one worm one lion one flower or whatever has no reference just by itself as it must be compared with other nature so that we can determine its relative place and position in nature

getting too myopic means you are reading too much into too little of a sample

unless of course you work on madison avenue for an advertising agency LOL

if this were not true then every artist whould be limited to say their ten best pieces which they themselves select and all their other rough drafts and excercises destroyed as superfluous and unnecessarily redundant

 

[chronic]

well i guess this is why this site will have a limited utility for me ...

... any artist must display his entire body of work in order to be evaluated in total and by relation to each piece individually

Were you expecting to find the complete works on an online forum?

Try the books, then hunt down every periodical with uncollected poems, then head over to the Huntington and read all of the unpublished stuff there.

Let us know how that goes for you.

 

[d gray]

i think we may have discovered a new species of "forum fauna"
we'll have to wait for our resident anthropologist to analyze and confirm.

 

[mjp]

New? No, he's nothing more than a professor with a pathological fear of punctuation. Perhaps his parents were killed by a comma or a period.

 

[Gerard K H Love]

He choked on a comma as a child and periods give him diarrhea. Once he reads some Bukowski he'll start to heal.

 

[Ponder]

That was a real quickie.

 

[mjp]

Yeah, but that's how it's going to be now. And we move the really stupid shit out of public view, so if it seems harsh based on what you can see, you have to trust that there is more.

His circling is temporary anyway, though I'm sure the minute he can come back and be an asshole he will not disappoint.

 

[frankD]

this poem has a lot going on WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY ? gerard k h love

so i give my opinion and then get booted ?

okay so if you ask a question ad get an answer you dont like you attack the person along with the point of view using no other basis than you may not have liked it

how is that debating an issue ?

not to mention the subsequent posts seemed to relish my position and knew i was NOT going to be unable to reply - whats that all about ?

 

[Ponder]

That was a real quickie.

Second round.

 

[chronic]

I didn't know that you would be temporarily banned, though I can't say I was surprised. You basically came in here and started complaining about the site. If you came to my house and did that, I'd kick your ass out quicker than you could say "sorry."

I'd still like to know what you were expecting to find here, and why it seems to bother you to see a discussion about one of Bukowski's poems on a Bukowski forum. Feel free to start a thread where you can discuss the fine points of everything he ever wrote.

one poem is like looking at a small section of a TV screen - those few pixels will not show the entire picture - so IMHO any artist must display his entire body of work in order to be evaluated in total and by relation to each piece individually

You could say this about a chapter from a novel, but a poem should stand on its own. It is an individual work. What you said above is like saying that you can't make any judgement or express an opinion about a painting by Rembrandt because you aren't seeing all of his work at the same time.

 

[frankD]

if what you posit then i have a real question

name me one artist who created only one single piece (be it one poem or one painting or one story etc) who became widely accepted and recognized

as far as a poem standing on its own i think you mean it should convey a single idea or illustrate a single emotion feeling etc yes but that cannot be extrapolated as an entire body of work when giving an opinion

of course giving opinions here seems it can be dangerous - if i wasnt asked i wouldnt have answered

 

[chronic]

You're completely missing the point. It's not like the entire forum is devoted to this single poem. If you look around you'll find quite a few threads about other poems as well as the novels and short stories.

Bukowski didn't create "only one single piece." He was very prolific. But your attitude seems to be that if you haven't read every word he ever wrote, you can't express an opinion about one of his poems. Chances are that most of the regulars here have read more Bukowski than you have and are quite qualified to express their opinions.

 

[frankD]

and as for whats missing here -

my posts comparing john daly to bukowski - two gamblers (daly supposedly lost $40 million life to date !!!) - womanizers (daly married four times, one wife served federal time for fraud, one wife stabbed him in the neck) - famous drunks (daly had DT's during a tournament and had to be escorted from the course mid-round)

be careful of anyone that says "TRUST ME" - defend your rights to free speech - make up your own minds

 

[chronic]

What don't you understand here? The forum is "Charles Bukowski - American Author." Not "Drunks / Womanizers / Gamblers Who Have Led Lives That May Or May Not Have Been Similar To Charles Bukowski's." Drunks, gamblers and womanizers are a dime-a-dozen but their relation to Bukowski is superficial at best. Had you posted about another author who lived a similar life and wrote in a similar vein, you might have gotten some positive replies.

The mods give a lot of latitude to off-topic posts here, but hell, at least show a little interest in the subject at hand before you start bitching about it.

 

[Dennis Loves The Beer]

name me one artist who created only one single piece (be it one poem or one painting or one story etc) who became widely accepted and recognized

Vanilla Ice. What do i win??????

 

[mjp]

defend your rights to free speech

See the last item here.

 

[1fsh2fsh]

beautiful...

 

[Bukfan]

Hilarious! :D

 

[roni]

I'm too bored to read all of this conversation around frankD here, so maybe this might have been coming up before.

Spoiler:
It's in his Defense!!! (kinda)

There seems to be a general misunderstanding about his complaint against 'focusing on only one piece'.

to help remember, here's the initial statement:

[...] one poem is like looking at a small section of a TV screen - those few pixels will not show the entire picture - so IMHO any artist must display his entire body of work in order to be evaluated in total and by relation to each piece individually

I think, the main mistake he makes here, is NOT to say, that one should know more about an author than just one poem to say something about that author or his poetry. I guess most here would agree on this more or less.

The main 'mistake' he made, was assuming (because of this one very specialiced question) that we usually tend to focus on just a few bits and pieces.

Him being a newbie, he couldn't know, how DEEP this site goes and how many people here know so much about Bukowski, that we ARE indeed able to pick single poems or quotes or pictures and talk about them, because the BACKGROUND is always there.

So, I think (and I'm not defending him as a person in general, but only on this point!), he simply tried to get into action too quick.
Not looking around enough, who is here and what knowledge do people have here etc. As a single thought thrown into a conversation in a bar, he might've been right.


so, frankD, for your 2nd chance:

look around.
dig.
find out, on with niveau some here talk and what immense background some of the regulars have. THEN you'll see, there was no real cause for your argument in this case.
But if you then still think "this is why this site will have a limited utility for me" - okay. cu.
And sure it is limited. For example, we rarely debate about quantum-physics or plate-tectonics (which are interesting subjects too) - but concerning Bukowski, you won't find a richer source than this. Worldwide.

 

[Gerard K H Love]

Listen to . Read the poem-which was written while Bukowski listened to Shostakovich Symphony 10 II and it adds some dimension and spirit to his words.
Frank D, have you done that? That is what I wanted you to discuss here. It is something to take advantage of, being able to hear what he was listening to when he wrote this poem.