I'm seriously sad, because I can't read the later collections anymore (which are the majority of them at this point) without seeing ghosts at every turn. Anyone can go through the manuscripts and see that the later the date, the more liberties were taken with the work. Shit like this just casts doubt over everything, even when changes may not have been made (though it is unusual to find an example of a collected poem that hasn't been changed in the posthumous books - the changes are so pervasive that I am surprised when I find a manuscript that closely matches the published poem).
You can say that "Bukowski revised," but he didn't do most of these things. You can see his revisions on the manuscripts. You can certainly see his
intention with a poem. He didn't change "breathing tissue" to "facial tissue and toilet paper" any more than he would change "Jane" to "Bob." Only someone who
does not understand the poem could make those changes.
This is like Theo Van Gogh (the 19th century one) taking a palatte knife, mixing up some paint and "improving" Vincent's paintings, because, after all, he paid for the paint, and he knows how a painting
should look. It's not editing, it's destruction. And the fact that it escalated to the point of ridiculousness after Bukowski's death only makes it more obvious whose hand is at work:
The Butcher of Santa Barbara (cue screams from the balcony!).
I found a perfect example of good editing yesterday in a Wormwood issue. You can see it
here. Malone changed "counteract" to "contradict." He
fixed the piece, he didn't change its meaning.
