Bukowski poetry collections specifically related to women/sex (1 Viewer)

Hi everyone,

As part of my English Literature coursework, I am comparing and contrasting three texts to analyse evidence of the passivity of women. I have been given 'Othello' by Shakespeare and 'The Woman Who Walked Into Doors' by Roddy Doyle as my two set texts and I have decided to use some Bukowski's work as my third text. My original idea was to use a certain combination of Buk's poetry that I felt was relevant to my specific topic. I have 'The Pleasures of the Damned' collection and I was willing to work with that but apparently exam regulations require me to find a smaller collection to work with, so here's my question: can anybody suggest to me a collection of Buk's poetry that is related to women/sex explicitly? Most of the poems should reference these two topics in some way or another. The poems don't have to refer to the passivity of women as Buk is my contrasting text. If all else fails and I can't find a suitable collection then I will just have to use 'Women', one of my favourite books, as a back up. However my tutor feels that using some suitable poetry would add an element of challenge to my task and I'm always up for that.

Thank you,

Em
 
Yeah, I would also suggest "Love Is a Dog from Hell". Basically every poem in there touches upon the subject of either love or sex or women or all of them at once. But be prepared for something else than just passive women. Absolutely nothing about that book is passive. Good luck with your work!
 
If your instructor went for it, you could also hand-picked an assortment of poems to use (as opposed to one entire collection). A little digging through the MANUSCRIPTS on this site could work.
 
All the best Em with your course work, agree with all the advice above. Just one quibble really, overall for me it is often Chinaski that comes across as passive and not his women.Yes there are lots of poems and text where he objectifies them, but I really can't easily identify, blatantly passive women in his adult life ( his mother is a clearly a different subject all together). Crazy ones, assertive ones, aggressive ones and lovely ones too, but many of them, independant and strong willed, perhaps the total opposite of his very weak, needy mother, I don't know.
 
Love is a Dog from Hell is a good choice as far as poetry is concerned. If you consider chosing prose, in your case I'd personally use Lady Death from Pulp but that's just me. Anyway be careful, the scholars/bukowski mix has proven to be dangerous ! :) Good luck !
 
What no Jeannie Nitro?? she's got to be in there:).The Fratellis did this song from their We Need Medicine album 2013.
Pretty terrible actually:
 
I Know!!! veering off topic, but have you heard this? when he did a side project: Velvet Codeine Club - pretty good, but didn't last - they fell out:).
V good Live:

 
I hope Love is a Dog From Hell isn't too large a collection for you too use. If so, maybe you can go with something like Play the Piano and find some select poems out of there that would suffice - not that I can think of any off the top of my head! (Sorry!) I'm just thinking of not going for the obvious, Bukowski "love" poetry is all.
 
Hi everyone, thank you so much for all your replies! Love Is A Dog From Hell was the collection I did have in mind, so I'm really happy that you've all basically confirmed that its the right choice. I think I confused everyone a little bit though. Even though my question is about passivity, Buk is my contrasting author so I'm not worried about finding evidence of passive women with his work. I have started drafting my answer now, and I was just wondering if perhaps anyone here would mind reading through my work just to make sure that my analysis of Buk's work is accurate?

Thanks again,
Em
 
[...] if perhaps anyone here would mind reading through my work just to make sure that my analysis of Buk's work is accurate?

My own skills in using the English language the proper way are below par, as you may know already,
but I'm an excellent driver and the master of hermeneutics, as anybody here will confirm.
Also, I'm always available to serve beautiful girls even if they're thousands of miles away. (this too can easily be confirmed by our regulars ;-))

so, if you feel like it:
send your paper along my way.
 
Also, I'm always available to serve beautiful girls even if they're thousands of miles away. (this too can easily be confirmed by our regulars ;-))
Maybe it's not her real face in the profile pic ;)

I would have loved to read it too, but I can't before Sunday or Monday.

Also I do agree with everyone that Buk's female characters are not passive. In fact, although his sexual objectification of them is definitely problematic, from a feminist point of view, he does better than most Hollywood films (hello Bechdel-test!): he has a range of diverse female characters, with their own often colourful personality, who are not limited to being silent secondary characters in the background.
Linda King for ex can be seen as annoying sometimes, but she is fully in charge of her sexuality (teaching cunni to Buk) and is definitely no shrinking violet. Jane is portrayed in "Hollywood" both as a working-class drunkard, but at the same time as a beautiful tragic figure (the corn scene). And the first time we meet Sarah in "Women" she is portrayed as some wholesome down-to-earth independant woman who runs her own coffee-shop, but still has her shortcomings (with the Guru stuff).
That goes with recent feminist criticism I read: writing feminist fiction is not about portraying women in an all too positive light, it is about writing realistic, non-stereotyped characters who play an active role in the narrative. And preferably several of them.

End of rant :agb:
 
Maybe it's not her real face in the profile pic [...]
doesn't matter anyway. won't ever see her in person.
it just FEELS better to imagine that the girl you're talking to is a beauty.
Of course, in YOUR case, I KNOW that you are.
 
Just a thought, are there any papers or books on the critical analysis on Bukowski's poems by scholars? I can't seem to find anything, but if there is something knocking about, it would be useful to know
 
I'm not sure that there are any books on the critical analysis of Buk's poems, but there is at least one book that is critical analysis of Buk's work broken down by poetry and fiction: Russell Harrison's Against the American Dream, Essays on Charles Bukowski, from Black Sparrow. Word 'round these parts seems to be that there are some factual inaccuracies contained therein, however.
 
Just a thought, are there any papers or books on the critical analysis on Bukowski's poems by scholars? I can't seem to find anything, but if there is something knocking about, it would be useful to know
This one I hear might be of interest...

Charles Bukowski by David Calonne
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You can fond a sample of articles here: http://www.bukowski-gesellschaft.de/bukowski-forschung.htm

When I started my first master dissertation on Bukowski's poetry that was back in 2002 and only Jules Smith's book helped - a bit. Otherwise I couldn't find any close reading of Bukowski's poetry and had to do all by myself.

David's book is really good, because finally there is a scholar who does analyse the poems themselves. However, now that I have to write 400 pages of poetry analysis, I still need to have my own ideas and argue for them. Bukowski's poetry analysis is still largely uncharted territory.
 
I just read the Hugh Fox critical study on Buk from 1968 and it's the tits. I didn't ever really want to read any academic review of his work, but I thought Fox did a really good job and taught me something in the process. I think it deserves a free scan on here so others can read it.
 

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