Great Poems Found In Letters & Correspondence (1 Viewer)

I had a lengthly correspondence with Bukowski from the late 70s thru the early 80s (about 30 letters total). I can assure you that in many of the letters bukowski would interject a stream-of-conscious poem that was awesome..he'd be responding to my previous dissertation upon the art of horse race handicapping or the woman who frequent the race track "the woman who go to the track look worse than the 5000 claimers" or the hardened loveless faces of the first 5000 cars he would encounter on the freeway on the ride in when suddenly--off the cuff--here would come this great poem "returning home from another day of coming and going...I crack open a beer and look out the window at another dismal calif evening...oh the sadness of the easter parade marching past my window once..woman in their april attire...a vast spectacle of high fashion..fiery..now probably in a nursing home or stiffened under a headstone...ah..if we can only learn love, stay fluid ..amid the coming and the going..and the stopping for a beer on a cold calif evening...and how soft we really are..beyond our lobster shells..." etc etc. Awesome AWESOME!!! This is from a late 70s letter..I'm glad I copied some of the highlights before (reluctantly) having to part with my Buk collection in 1982 (sold to Joseph The Provider). I'm certain someone someday will gather these uncollected gems from buks many letters of correspondence..he was truly a genuis--when it came to the written word.
 
Aren't you the same guy who said his last 10 books were "Terrible poetry - not even poetry: chopped up "gab" prose"? Now you're saying that chopping up his letters (i.e.; gab prose) creates "AWESOME" "genius" poems?

Make up your mind.
 
Aren't you the same guy who said his last 10 books were "Terrible poetry - not even poetry: chopped up "gab" prose"? Now you're saying that chopping up his letters (i.e.; gab prose) creates "AWESOME" "genius" poems?

I think what niceguy is trying to say is that chopped up gab prose sent to me is crafted of finer stuff than chopped up gab prose sent to you. Or something like that. Or it could be something else. Probably something else. What is going on here?
 
The poem from my letter meets my qualifications as to a great buk poem: fluidity, rhythm, great imagery. Perhaps the way I structuraly delineated it caused you to think it was loosely structured, but in the letter it was laid out line for line vertically Here it is again (slanted lines denoting another line): "returning home/ from another day/of coming and going/ I crack open a beer/ and look out the window/ at another dismal calif evening/ oh the sadness of the easter parade/ marching past my window once/women in their april attire/ a vast spectacle of of high fashion/ fiery/ now probably in a nursing home/ or stiffened under a headstone/ if we can only learn love/ stay fluid/amid the coming and the going/and the stopping for a beer/ on a cold calif evening/ and how soft we really are/ beyoind our lobster shells" that's a far cry from gab prose. All I'm saying that there are uncollected & unpublished poetic gems interspersed among buks prolific correspondence that deserve to be published & read.
 
Al, glad to see you have resurfaced here since I had a question about something I read you wrote somewhere I while back about Norman Mailer. I think it was a letter of Mailer's to you which said something about Buk. I vaguely remember an image of that his poetry was incredible, "like spitting out nails," or something like that. Do you remember this and could you let me know the whole reference. Thanks!
 
The poem from my letter meets my qualifications as to a great buk poem: fluidity, rhythm, great imagery.
Right. But nothing from the "last 8 or 10 books" does. Got it. Just wanted to be sure that's what you were saying.
 
Hello David: Yeah, I'm back-altho don't know for how long as i'm pushing 70 and tired of the whole game. Yeah, I received a response from Mailer to a letter I had written him inquiring if he knew about Bukowski and what he (Mailer) thought of the buk. He wrote a short letter back (which--by the way--was stolen from my collection) in which he said "bukowski spits his words out like nails". That was, basically the whole reference--as Mailer went on to profusely praise his own works (typical Mailer).
 
OK, thanks. Earlier today I found your comment on this in one of your postings. I guess we'll have to wait for Mailer's letters to be published and I assume he kept copies!
 
I had a lengthly correspondence with Bukowski from the late 70s thru the early 80s...

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You know, I don't think I could sell any letters either. I'm in some financial "trouble" these days, and have thought twice about selling an autographed baseball of mine but I just couldn't pull the fucking trigger.

But you know, take away the roof over my head and starve me a while and.... maybe we can work something out.
 
[...] selling [...]

don't !!!

just DON'T !!!


we've had it here before.
even before 'the economical crisis'.
and I've ALWAYS insisted and still will:

NO groceries you may be able to buy will EVER be worth the culture you're selling for it!

Don't give away your cultural belongings Ever!
(They will leave you, when you die of course, but they shouldn't do so before.)
Culture is EVERYTHING! It's the Only thing that seperates us from the apes (and people who voted for Bush).

under All circumstances: KEEP THESE THINGS!!!




ps:
this is not a rich man speaking.
 
I was at a comic convention in Columbus back in '98, I think. Adam West and Frank Gorshin were guests there. I had Adam West sign a Batman comic. I forked over $15, but it was worth it. I didn't pay out for Gorshin because I wanted to conserve funds for other purchases there. Now I regret not meeting him because he passed away about a year or so later.
 
thanks, roni, et al BukCulture luvvers..

...was thinking abt selling my batch of Buk letters (rec'd 1974-1982) + the original of the portrait Buk did of me in 1975 he named "Men's Lib Poster" (that appears now & then out there in Bukowskilandia)..need the $--also, afraid they'll get dumped when i die, ensconced as they are in my antique rolltop--better off Read in some archive place or Buk collector than Dead in postmortem pandemonia of RIP Me..but roni recently changed my mind for the reasons he states in his post above on this thread..i LOVE owning these Buk letters; they are more precious to me as the one bauble of diamonds i own, an antique pendant, circa 1890, that i like to imagine was mined when diamond miners were volunteers who got a cut of the profit, not starving slaves..al fogel is right abt Buk's epistolary "poetry," whether line-broken w/fluidity or run-in ramble run-on; every letter he wrote to me, whether pissed off at me or powdering my ego is one long poem--no letter ever redundant or mundane or repetitive of a line from another buk poem--his mind, filled w/an universe of unique words, everytime it cranked, shot out those Mailer-made "nails" a fireworks of magnificent bullets..for now, i guess i'll keep my batch of Culture that separates me from the apes and Bush-voters..and if i do sell them, out of necessity, i'll make sure it's to another Buk Luvver like me..
 
All I'm saying that there are uncollected & unpublished poetic gems interspersed among buks prolific correspondence that deserve to be published & read.

I think you're right Niceguy. That book would be an interesting read.
If you call the lines in such a book "gab prose" or "pomes" or "stream of consciousness" doesn't matter a flying fr@ck to me...
 

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