History of "Poems Written Before Jumping Out of an 8 Story Window" (1 Viewer)

It's possible that this has been discussed previously, but I searched and couldn't find anything.

So, I was leafing through some of my chapbooks and I noticed something very odd in my copy of All the Assholes in the World and Mine. I was checking out the publication information page/front colophon and I was noticing that the list of "Other Books by Bukowski" was enticingly short - just nine titles, which is rather cool. Then I noticed that, neatly sandwiched between Confessions of an Man Insane Enough to Live With Beasts and The Genius of the Crowd, was Poems Written Before Jumping Out of an Eight Story Window. (Yes, Eight, not 8.) I know that 8 Story Window was first published in '68 - June, I believe.

My copy of Assholes clearly states First Priniting, 1966 with Douglas Blazek's signature.

So, what's the deal - did Buk have the 8 Story Window idea back in '65 or '66 already sold to a publisher? Were the contents of 8 Story Window largely written in '66 and Blazek perhaps took a statement from Bukowski about an upcoming book called...and ran with it? Odd that it appears before Genius of the Crowd however, which adds some weight to it having been somehow established before Genius of the Crowd.

Another oddity that, as the years go by, becomes harder to pin down. Hopefully someone here will be able to unlock the riddle.

As an extra bit of trivia, despite the Henry Chinaski character having been created in '65 in Confessions of an Man Insane Enough to Live With Beasts, the Chinaski name does not show up in Assholes. He is the great Puchinski.
 
My understanding is that Mel Bluffington had all the guts printed a couple years before it was actually published, but then the project sat. Charles Potts picked it up and printed the covers and published it. I think that Bluffington may have helped at that point. Maybe Abel or Krech can shed some more light on this...

Bill
 
Interesting. I suppose that more or less answers the question, but it seems odd that Blazek would list 8 Story Window as a publication when it wasn't really published. Since the first edition of 8 Story Window has a drawing in the center dated '68, not all of the guts were complete in '65 or '66.
 
Screams from the Balcony:

[To Tom McNamara]​
May 20, 1965​

something called THE MAD VIRGIN PRESS wants to do a book of my poems and I don't know if it will be mimeo or what and I don't care. they say ten percent, and I can always use a little beer money. I think I have a title"”Poems Written Before Jumping Out of an 8 Story Window. I will try it on them and see what they say.​

Cooney's note for the above:-

The book of poems announced here was ultimately published not by Mad Virgin Press but by Poetry X/Change, Glendale, California. It did not appear in print until 1968.​
 
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I wrote about this in the PhD, but I'm too lazy to double-check the info now. If I'm not mistaken, B. sent the customary batch of poems to the guys running Blitz mag (Buffington and some other guy) in early 1965, and they were so taken by B's work that they used some poems in Blitz and talked B. into using the others for a chap. Eventually, the project was abandoned and, as Bill said, Potts rescued it sometime in 1967, prodded by the elusive Darrell. Potts printed the chap in 1968, which had already been edited and designed by the Blitz editors. The dates might not be accurate, but, yes, the poems in Poems Written... were, in fact, old poems. Same thing with At Terror Street.
 
Leaping back to Screams...

[To Thomas Livingstone]
February 26, 1968​

also have had an old book picked up that has gone from hand to hand, not bad poems really but each person who has touched them has been kissed-off by bad luck, so now I hope Potts don't eat poison or something. but he's gone to work on getting Darrell of Glendale to work up the book with his new press, and Charlie completely off screw, he intends to publish, what was it 1,000 copies or 2,000? but sensible enough to charge only one dollar. he also wants to lay money and 150 copies on me, but I tell him, take it easy, kid. he writes poetry, and I met him down here once, we got a little high here at my place. real quiet guy. not much talk. I liked him. I am not much talk either. so we just sat around without strain. anyhow, book called Poems Written Before Leaping from an 8 Story Window. c/o Charles Potts, 6433 Telegraph Ave., Oakland, Calif. 94609. Apt. #J. one dollah. I intend to agree with him. I think the fucking thing will sell out. it's the next poem that counts, we know. it's the way we walk across the floor. but it would still be well to see things working good all around. we've had some coming"”good pussy
and good luck. I'll take the latter.​
 
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Thanks for all the info. I guess the one question that may never get answered is why the hell Blazek listed it as a publication when it clearly wasn't yet.
 
probably for the same reason that krumhansl listed PASTORAL as a published broadside when not one copy had, to that point, ever been released to anyone. It was an unpublished broadside until a few copies leaked out on ebay maybe 3 years ago. I guess Blazek heard that it was out, even though it was not...
 
Blazek also adverstised Atomic Scribblings... in Olé and, as you know, AS... was never released.
 
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I was reading R.D. Armstrong's Last Call: The Legacy of Charles Bukowski a while ago and came across more about Poems Written Before Jumping.

Untitled-1.png
 
Most interesting thread.
I'm currently reading and enjoying 13 of those poems; the ones, that had been later collected in The Roominghouse Madrigals.
Which I'd probably never come to know, if the glorious database wasn't existing...
 
I picked up a signed copy of the Litmus version the other day. (It was actually Richmond's copy -- his signature is on the inside cover).

Anyway, I noticed right away that the centerfold drawing for Cows in Art Class was a different color from the previous copy I owned. This one is brown and the one I previously owned was red. Meanwhile, Krumhansl said it was orange.

I'm a little color blind, so maybe the one I'm calling red is orange -- anyway, it would be interesting to know what others have.

3.jpg 121a.jpg
 
Mine's something of an amalgamation of those two. The sun is brown and red-orange, most of the cows are brown, but the lower third of the drawing (lower limbs and ground "detail") are red-orange.
 
I don't know how that was printed, I don't have one here to look at, but assuming it's offset on a small press, it could just be that whoever ran it didn't feel like really cleaning the ink rollers or fountain for a small run of red. Cleaning the rollers takes longer than running a small job. You couldn't get away with that at a commercial shop for a paying job (and a good printer wouldn't let it happen anyway), but I could see it happening for something like this. You know, unless poetry books were paying the bills at that shop.

Anyway, if the rollers weren't cleaned properly, as the run progressed, the little vestiges of black - or whatever dark color was still lingering on the outer edges of the rollers and ink fountain - would slowly spread out into the red ink. So it would start red (we've seen some that are very red) and slowly turn brown. It's done on purpose sometimes, a "split fountain." But this doesn't look like that. Most likely it's just sloppiness or laziness.

That's how I would classify it, rather than as an intentional variation. Though printing or bindery mistakes never stopped a postage stamp or baseball card from being valuable, so I guess if you were selling it you might want to call it a variant.
 
I'm currently reading and enjoying 13 of those poems; the ones, that had been later collected in The Roominghouse Madrigals.
"my feet pushed into socks is an Arab crawling up to
kill"
(Freedom: The Unmolested Eagle of Myself)

Some nice and even great ones among those thirteen poems, e.g.:
Mercy, Wherever you are..., One Night Stand, Cows in Art Class, Thermometer, Big Bastard with a Sword.
 
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