New Joan Jobe Smith book about Bukowski is out (1 Viewer)

mjp

Founding member
Charles Bukowski Epic Glottis: His Art & His Women (& me)

Haven't had a chance to read it yet, but I have read the introduction by Pamela Miller Wood (Charles Bukowski's Scarlet), and it's good.

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Good one, PS! :D The forum would'nt let me post and when I finally succeeded it had accepted two of my attempts and there was no option to delete the second one.

Does anyone know how much of Joan Jobe Smith's book is prose and how much is her poetry?
 
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There are a lot of poems, but if I had to guess I'd say they are less than 10% of the text.
 
That's great! I was afraid half the book would be poems about Buk. Not that I mind reading such poems, but I'm more interested in her relationship with Buk. I remember she had a great article about it in the Beat Scene special Bukowski issue.
 
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just finished it. it was pretty good. one complaint I would have is there is a lot of repetition, but I think that's because most of the pieces were published elsewhere and "compiled" here. but Smith is a very good writer so it makes the minor flaws easy to overlook. the last section is very touching and her memories of the Huntington thing in 2010 and her encounter with "the widow" are very interesting and telling.
 
I've read about half of it by now and I agree the Huntington thing is very interesting and telling. The way she describes her meeting Linda B. both in the Huntington chapter and elsewhere in the book leaves little doubt about what she thinks of Linda B. Btw, mjp, the forum and Roni gets a mention in the chapter.
Some of the chapters in the book have been published before in various mags such as in Beat Scene's special Bukowski issue from 2004. What surprised me more was to find 20 pages of her poems about people like Jim Morrison, Aretha Franklin, Frank Sinatra, Go-Go girls, etc. I have no idea what the poems are doing in a book about Bukowski although I did like reading them.
There's also a bunch of drawings of Bukowski in the book, most of which look rather amateurish and average to me, but what do I know about art. Anyway, it's a very interesting and entertaining book and it's certainly worth having for a Bukowski fan.
 
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I got the book for Christmas and have only had time to glance at it, but it looks very interesting, covering lots of territory. I was glad to see the Morrison and Go-Go girl material in there -- even if it is padding -- because she's a good writer and I'm curious what she has to say about other things beyond just her Bukowski moments.
 
I just finished reading it. It is well written. Definitely worth buying although I won my copy in a Silver Birch Press raffle.
Joan Jobe Smith kept it real. The titles of Bukowski's books were repeatedly dropped here and there for flavour but it was still well done. I found the last phone call by Bukowski, announcing his wedding, quite brutal.
 
After reading three memoirs, I am feeling that I don't want to know more about Bukowski's private life. I understand that it is okay to set things straight but I think that I won't need to know much more, unless it has to do with what he wrote.
 
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