gravestone question. (1 Viewer)

im just now getting into reading and collecting, and one thing i was wondering is what is the symbolism/story behind the boxer graphic on Bukowski's tombstone. this is a great forum from what i can tell and i appreciate any help on this one.
 
Welcome to the forum, andintheend! That's a good question you raise. I've been wondering about that myself. My guess is that it has something to do with the fact that Buk liked to go to boxing fights, at least when he was younger...
 
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I don't really know but...
I have some thoughts.
There is a certain state of being, when one has matured and reached a level where the most complex or difficult thing is done with apparent ease.
Strangely... some animals and all children posses the essence of this.
Bruce Lee writes of it in relation to the martial arts. Buddhism concentrates on it....some think of it as a state of flow....it is style, grace - even when doing a mundane or 'ugly' thing.
There is an inherent paradox in that only after great striving, some suffering and maybe a little luck you will make the difficult look easy. We see it in Michael Schumacher - David Beckham - Lance Armstrong. We saw it in Bach, Mozart. Buk could see it in a boxer or a waitress or a shoeshine man.
Yeah, he probably did attend a few boxing matches, bullfights etc...

Think of the boxer, fighting for his very life. Putting all on the line - for a living!
And then - don't try.

If you can reconcile these two things - lifes spark and magic will reveal itself to you. :D

grave.jpg
 
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Duval mentions the gloves in his book Bukowski and the BEATS: "How should the pair of boxing gloves engraved on the gravestone be understood? Buk was a man of combat, a "counterpuncher" as the Americans say. A guy who retaliates with a punch to the punches thrown at him. It was true of his skill in writing as of his conversation." etc. (p131/132)

also is quoted a letter from REACH FOR THE SUN (p225), where hank explains "don't try."

"Well, it means if the stuff doesn't jump on you and make you do it, forget it, in writing and in everything else."

mjp, in the back of duval's book are a list of internet sites dedicated to b. one is www.mjptv.com/writers/bukowski
 
mjp, in the back of duval's book are a list of internet sites dedicated to b. one is www.mjptv.com/writers/bukowski
Ha. Had I known that I wouldn't have let the domain lapse a couple months ago. Oh well, another dead link in the billions of dead links in print. [I have that domain again, so the link is not dead.]

Interesting quote though, since the image on the marker is not a "pair of boxing gloves," but a boxer with his fists up, ready for a fight.
 
Interesting quote though, since the image on the marker is not a "pair of boxing gloves," but a boxer with his fists up, ready for a fight.


i hadn't noticed that. my observational abilities never were what they used to be. i wonder if it was a mistake in translation?
 
the boxer could stand for a lot of things.

what stands out most to me when I think about it, is that interview when he says..."what they used to call me in the bars was a good dooker. that's the ultimate compliment."

i dunno i agree with buk on a bike too.
 
what stands out most to me when I think about it, is that interview when he says..."what they used to call me in the bars was a good dooker. that's the ultimate compliment."

I have always thought of the "good duker" comment too when seeing the grave stone boxer. Sure, it could mean more, but that seems to be something from the guts of his life.
 
And then there is...

THE LOSER

and the next I remembered I'm on a table
everybody's gone: the head of bravery
under light, scowling, flailing me down...
and then some toad stood there, smoking a cigar:
"Kid you're no fighter," he told me,
and I got up and knocked him over a chair;
it was like a scene in a movie, and
he stayed there on his big rump and said
over and over: "Jesus, Jesus, whatsamatta wit
you?" and I got up and dressed,
the tape still on my hands, and when I got home
I tore the tape off my hands and
wrote my first poem,
and I've been fighting
ever since.

Bukowski (who else?)
 

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