A question ... and small-press mag missing from Works database (1 Viewer)

[HarryC13]

Hi all,

I'm looking for an article on Bukowski published probably in the late 80s. It was in a major magazine ... I was thinking Rolling Stone but I'm not seeing that in the database. One thing the article described was when Buk and some friends were editing a small-press magazine. They'd get drunk and read the poems, and the ones they didn't like they'd smear with eggs and beer and set them on fire! If this rings a bell with anybody, please let me know.

I know that the database isn't being updated and a new one is in the works. An obscure but vital small-press mag of the mid-80s, Random Weirdness, which was edited by Steven Doering, published Bukowski in three issues ranging from 1983 to 1985. Doering was an old small-press pal whom I read with on a few occasions and he has disappeared from the face of the earth. as Abel can tell you.

In at least one of the copies, I have a poem or poem too, one of the three or four times when I was lucky enough to share space with Bukowski. They're available now on Abebooks:

http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?sts=t&tn=random+weirdness

Thanks all,

Harry

 

[cirerita]

Harry,

I think you're talking about a piece about Laugh Literary, edited by B. and Neeli Cheery in the late 60's/early 70's. B. himself recalled that period in several interviews and poems, and I'm sure the story was also told in articles here and there, I just can't recall in which ones right now.

yep, Doering seems to vanished. No one knows where he is. And those RW issues have been sitting on Abebooks for a loooong time...

 

[hank solo]

I'm looking for an article on Bukowski published probably in the late 80s. It was in a major magazine ... I was thinking Rolling Stone but I'm not seeing that in the database. One thing the article described was when Buk and some friends were editing a small-press magazine. They'd get drunk and read the poems, and the ones they didn't like they'd smear with eggs and beer and set them on fire! If this rings a bell with anybody, please let me know.

Harry, you're talking about Bukowski and Neeli Cherkovski when they were editing 'Laugh Literary and Man the Humping Guns'. I haven't seen an article in Rolling Stone about that, but those drinking and smearing sessions are described in Neeli's bio 'Bukowski - a life' (probably in the earlier edition 'Hank' also) and in his (Neeli's) 'Whitman's Wild Children' - the copyright page of which states

"earlier versions of some of these chapters appeared in ACM (Another Chicago Magazine), Los Angeles Times Magazine, Mirage and ZYZZYVZ".

So maybe you saw it in one of those mags?

 

[HarryC13]

Thanks for the info, guys. I'm almost certain I saw the Los Angeles Times article listed on Neeli's copyright page ... one of my small-press pals probably sent it to me. At least that rings a bell. And Abel's right, those copies of Random Weirdness have been sitting on Abebooks for a while. Maybe my relatively crappy poetry scares people away from them. :)

I have to say, the poets listed in the Random Weirdness an Abebooks were all small-press staples in the mid-to-late 80s, at least in my circles. "Charles Bukowski, Ron Androla, Michael Hemmingson, Sue Marra, Don Wentworth, Tom House, Ronald Edward Kittell, Arthur Knight, Kurt Nimmo, Tom Blessing, Harry Calhoun, S. K. Morgan, Steve Richmond, Seth Wade, G. Locklin, et al" ... Of course, we've all heard of Richmond. I remember him as a young, obnoxious brat who chastized me for not taking his poems and complained that other poets were "cats trying to be lions."

Others of note in that list are Gerald Locklin and Don Wentworth ... Locklin was a pal of Buk's and read poetry with him on at least a few occasions. He's mentioned in the 1976 Rolling Stone article in the "Words" section of this site. Wentworth is still publishing Lilliput Review, which he freely admits was inspired by my Pig in a Poke and Pig in a Pamphlet stuff. Arthur Knight is probably most famous as being a Beat historian, publishing books like Beat Angels on his Unspeakable Visions of the Individual Press. And Androla was generally thought to be the "next big thing" in small-press poetry but somehow it never happened. Hemmingson has become an oft-published novelist (check out Amazon). When I knew him he was an 18-year-old kid and his stuff wasn't that good, but he was persistent and wrote a lot, and that is really important as you know.

I read with both Knight and Wentworth ... hung out with him sometimes when we both lived in Pittsburgh ... and read with Androla on several occasions. It's great to reminisce about this stuff! But the old boy has rambled on long enough ...

 

[mjp]

As far as the database here is concerned, it doesn't contain articles about Bukowski, criticism, interviews, etc. It is meant to be a place to find where a certain poem or story appeared. So even the new database (not quite online yet) follows the same pattern.

Someone else is working on a periodical bibliography <cough, cirerita, cough> that may be a lot more comprehensive - I'm not sure what it's going to contain, but he's got deatails on a good number of periodical appearances that are not in the current database.

 

[HarryC13]

Thanks for clarifying!

Thanks, Michael. That makes sense ... glad cirerita is working on the bibliography. I know he'll do a great job on it.