Criticism of Bukowski as a poet (2 Viewers)

http://www.cosmoetica.com/TOP9-DES8.htm

This link will take you to a brief crit of Bukowski and then a reworking of one of his poems.

What do you think? Is this a brutal destruction of Bukowski a valid criticism or a spit of envy?

With such comments as these: In a sense, CB was in a category unto himself. He is Confessional- but not a Confessionalist. He is hipster- but no Beatnik. He is self-indulgent- but no PC Elitist. Basically, he?s poetry?s premier schlub. Let?s read & dissect

:confused: :confused:
 
I think it's ok to criticize B's poetry, and that's especially easy when you pick up a not too good poem to start with.

I don't buy any of his arguments -line breaks are the product of laziness, etc.- but let me just say that his "tightened" version has no rhythm at all. By removing the "lazy" parts of the original poem, he takes away the rhythm.

I guess that if he tried to "tighten" the poem "The Day I Kicked Away a Bankroll" we would have no poem at all :D
 
Written by the immortal Danny Schnieder
Go into his site to see his contrubution to immortality

on an Alice In Chains moan
grey as the eyeball of a heroin addict,
its future scryed as an unpainted cloud

Hell I had to look the word up
,scry

v : divine by gazing into crystals

Then we get this
The sloe-eyes of Phillip Chin,
long filed under "passings",
grasp me now like a feeble chinook
on the needles of the evergreen
forest of yesterdays where dew
buds into mighty rivers raging
forth from the highlands of the past
into the dark blue oceans, the ever-seeing eyes
of the planet, of futurity
where Galileo and Leeuwenhoek
swim unconcerned of this verging sea's tides


Still can't tell if he's referring to the fish or the wind. In Canada a chinook is a unusuall warm wind felt during the winter that raises temps considerably-it is also a variety of salmon-it is never feeble..... until now
 
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I thought it was a valid criticism of Bukowski as well and I did wonder why he had choosen that particular poem when there are thousands more that would stand up to such a critique.

And I agree also that the rewrite basical rapes the poem of its rhythm. All the rewrite does is 'strip bare' it doesn't improve or perfect the poem at all, he simply makes it shorter minimal, but it doesn't really demonstrate anything.

I don't necessarily buy his arguments about laziness either but nor do I think that to say Bukowski had an element of the slap-dash bout his writing is actually necessarily a problem.

All in all interesting...but strangely...overstated crit.
 
Fair enough afternoon, but I think it is equally ridiculous to say that anyone who criticises Bukowski or his work is necessarily a PHONY or a fool. That sounds just like a person milling around the 'gas of bukowskis poetry'.
 

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