Bukowski biographer and friend, poet Neeli Cherkovski, has died

[Rekrab]

Charles Bukowski's close friend, poet Neeli Cherkovski, has died following a massive heart attack. Neeli wrote an early memoir of Bukowski, titled Hank in the original edition, and later retitled Bukowski, A Life after revisions. I met Neeli a few times in the 1970s, although I don't recall much about those meetings at the moment. Also met him later at a reading in San Francisco circa 2005-ish. There are photos of him and Bukowski together. I'll find a few and post them here later unless someone beats me to it. He seemed like a good guy, and was a fine poet. Sad news.

 

[zobraks]

One of Neely's last videos:

 

[Rekrab]

 

[Rekrab]

 

[Pogue Mahone Athbheoim]

Thanks for everything, you crazy kid...

 

[Ambrose Mensch]

Charles Bukowski's close friend, poet Neeli Cherkovski, has died following a massive heart attack.

Thank you for this. I first became aware of him years ago from ‘Born into This’. He cut such a smart, cool, friendly figure, I started looking him up and reading some of his stuff. RIP

 

[Rekrab]

Bukowski didn't have many people he called friends, but Neeli was one of them. He really seemed to like him.

 

[Rekrab]

There's an excellent long obituary for Neeli Cherkovski in today's New York Times. It even features covers of Laugh Literary and Man the Humping Guns, the little mag he edited with Bukowski. Here's link, but there may be a paywall. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/29/books/neeli-cherkovski-dead.html

 

[Father Luke]

Tell me they didn’t have similarities. They even looked alike.

But… I don’t want to steal Neeli’s moment from him.

And I remember corresponding with him. I'm picky, or maybe lazy, about what I read. And those letters from him were so simple. What we used to call ‘just a regular guy’

He was sweet. I’m going to miss him.

 

[mikestro1]

I moved back to SF from 2008 to 2016 and met Neeli a few times. Could not have been nicer. He'll be missed.