Quick Tally (1 Viewer)

Need a quick question answered for my upcoming review of "Portions" for Pop Matters ... to date, how many volumes of Buk poetry are in the market? Thanks, guys ....
 
Well, we have this:

https://web.archive.org/web/2020/https://bukowski.net/database/indexLists.php?do=list_booksALPHA

So, take what you want and leave the rest. . .


1960s

* Flower, Fist and Bestial Wail (1960)
* Poems and Drawings (1962)
* Longshot Pomes for Broke Players (1962)
* Run with the Hunted (1962)
* It Catches My Heart in Its Hand (1963)
* Grip the walls (1964)
* Cold Dogs in the Courtyard (1965)
* Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live with Beasts (1965)
* Crucifix in a Deathhand (1965)
* All the Assholes in the World and Mine (1966)
* The Genius of the Crowd (1966)
* Night's work (1966)
* The Most Beautiful Woman in Town & Other Stories (1967)
* At Terror Street and Agony Way (1968)
* Poems Written Before Jumping out of an 8 Story Window (1968)
* A Bukowski Sampler (1969)
* Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills (1969)
* If we take -- (1969)
* Notes of a Dirty Old Man (1969)


1970s

* Another Academy (1970)
* Fire Station (1970)
* Post Office (1971)
* Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions and General Tales of Ordinary Madness (1972)
* Me and your sometimes love poems (1972)
* Mockingbird, Wish Me Luck (1972)
* South of No North (1973)
* Burning in Water Drowning in Flame: Selected Poems 1955-1973 (1974)
* 55 beds in the same direction (1974)
* Factotum (1975)
* The Last Poem & Tough Company (1976)
* Scarlet (1976)
* Art (1977)
* Love is a Dog from Hell (1977)
* Legs, Hips and Behind (1978)
* Women (1978)
* You Kissed Lilly (1978)
* A Love Poem (1979)
* Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit (1979)
* Shakespeare Never Did This (1979)


1980s

* Dangling in the Tournefortia (1981)
* Ham On Rye (1982)
* Horsemeat (1982)
* The Last Generation (1982)
* Bring Me Your Love (illustrated by Robert Crumb) (1983)
* The Bukowski/Purdy Letters (1983)
* Hot Water Music (1983)
* Sparks (1983)
* Going Modern (1984)
* Horses Don't Bet on People and Neither Do I (1984)
* One For The Old Boy (1984)
* There's No Business (illustrated by Robert Crumb) (1984)
* War All the Time: Poems 1981-1984 (1984)
* Alone In A Time Of Armies (1985)
* The Day it Snowed in L.A. (1986)
* Gold In Your Eye (1986)
* Relentless As The Tarantula (1986)
* The Wedding (1986)
* You Get So Alone at Times It Just Makes Sense (1986)
* Luck (1987)
* Barfly (film) (1987)
* Beauti-Ful (1988)
* The Movie Critics (1988)
* Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems 1946-1966 (1988)
* Hollywood (1989)
* If You Let Them Kill You They Will (1989)
* Red (1989)
* We Ain't Got No Money Honey (1989)

1990s

* Darkness & Ice (1990)
* Not Quite Bernadette (1990)
* Septuagenarian Stew: Stories and Poems (1990)
* This (1990)
* In the Morning and at Night and In Between (1991)
* In The Shadow Of The Rose (1991)
* People Poems (1991)
* Last Night of the Earth Poems (1992)
* Now (1992)
* Three Poems (1992)
* Between The Earthquake (1993)
* Run with the Hunted: A Charles Bukowski Reader (1993)
* Screams from the Balcony: Selected Letters 1960-1970 (1993)
* Those Marvelous Lunches (1993)
* Pulp (1994)
* Confession Of A Coward (1995)
* Heat Wave (1995)
* (1995)
* Shakespeare Never Did This (augmented edition) (1995)
* Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories (1996)
* The Laughing Heart (1996)
* Bone Palace Ballet (1997)
* A New War (1997)
* The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship (1998)
* To Lean Back Into It (1998)
* Reach for the Sun: Selected Letters 1978-1994, Volume 3 (1999)
* The Singer (1999)
* What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire (1999)

2000 and after

* Open All Night (2000)
* Popcorn In The Dark (2000)
* Beerspit Night and Cursing: The Correspondence of Charles Bukowski and Sheri Martinelli 1960-1967 (2001)
* The night torn mad with footsteps (2001)
* Pink Silks (2001)
* The Simple Truth (2002)
* Sifting Through The Madness for the Word, The Line, The Way: New Poems (2003)
* as Buddha smiles (2004)
* The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain: New Poems (2004)
* Slouching Toward Nirvana (2005)
* (2006)
* The People Look Like Flowers At Last: New Poems (2007)
* Come on In! by Charles Bukowski (2008)
* The Pleasures of the Damned: Poems, 1951-1993 by Charles Bukowski (2008)
* Portions from a Wine-Stained Notebook: Uncollected Stories and Essays (2008)


What am I missing?
 
Well, right now, my quote in the article is thus:

Many American readers, schooled in traditional form, have great trouble with Bukowski's almost formless poetry ("prose with line breaks" is the most commonly-heard complaint), despite the fact that there are over 40 volumes of his poems available in the market, which means, by most reasonable standards, that the old man must have been doing something right. After all, Kellogg's would cease production of Corn Flakes if consumers stopped placing the hearty cereal on their breakfast tables and Ecco (an imprint of publishing conglomerate Harper Collins) would've long ago ceased publication of books like "Pleasures of the Damned: Poems, 1951-1993" is there wasn't an audience hungry for the product.

I can leave it at "forty-plus" or go for a more accurate figure.
 
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In the new database (I know), I make the distinction between one poem books (New Years Greetings, Burn Again Press, etc.) and what I considered "major" books. You may take issue with what I consider "major" books, but here is the list. It's 59 titles.

Flower, Fist and Bestial Wail 1960
Run With the Hunted 1962
Longshot Pomes for Broke Players 1962
It Catches My Heart In Its Hands 1963
Crucifix in a Deathhand 1965
Cold Dogs in the Courtyard 1965
Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live with Be... 1965
All The Assholes In The World and Mine 1966
At Terror Street and Agony Way 1968
Poems Written Before Jumping Out Of An 8 Story Win... 1968
Notes of a Dirty Old Man 1969
The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over The Hills 1969
Fire Station 1970
Erections, Ejaculations and General Tales of Ordin... 1972
Mockingbird Wish Me Luck 1972
South of No North 1973
Burning in Water Drowning in Flame 1974
Factotum 1975
Love is a Dog From Hell 1977
Women 1978
Legs, Hips and Behind 1978
Shakespeare Never Did This 1979
Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument ... 1979
Dangling in the Tournefortia 1981
Horsemeat 1982
Ham On Rye 1982
Bring Me Your Love 1983
Hot Water Music 1983
Tales of Ordinary Madness 1983
The Most Beautiful Woman in Town and Other Stories 1983
There's No Business 1984
Horses Don't Bet on People and Neither Do I 1984
War All the Time 1984
You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense 1986
Bukowski Photographs 1977-1987 1987
The Roominghouse Madrigals 1988
Beauti-ful 1988
Hollywood 1989
Septaugenarian Stew 1990
People Poems 1991
The Last Night of the Earth Poems 1992
Run With the Hunted 1993
Pulp 1994
Heat Wave 1995
Betting on the Muse 1996
Bone Palace Ballet 1997
The Captain is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have T... 1998
what matters most is how well you walk through the... 1999
Open All Night 2000
the night torn mad with footsteps 2001
Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line... 2002
The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain 2004
Slouching Toward Nirvana 2005
Come On In! 2006
The People Look Like Flowers At Last 2007
The Pleasures of the Damned 2007
Portions from a Wine-Stained Notebook 2008

--- But I just noticed that you said "poetry" specifically, so whittle away the non-poetry stuff and there's your answer. ;) Looks like 35 to me if you take out the BSP/Ecco anthologies.
 
Thanks, MJP. I think I'll stick with "nearly forty" to play it safe. Just trying to be accurate as possible; there are some discrepancies on a few key issues between your exhaustively researched timeline and Callone's intro to "Portions" (for instance, Callone asserts that the charity ward incident was '55 but the buk.net timeline says '54 based on correspondence and hospital receipts). Since I am writing a 3,000-word-plus examination of the book and its contribution to Bukowski academia I want to stay on the side of fact and not legend (such as the now-debunked claim that Buk "stopped writing for ten years" after Portfolio in 1946).
 
You may take issue with what I consider "major" books, but here is the list.

Interesting that you would include Fire Station, which was collected in its entirety in Play the Piano..., but exclude Scarlet and In the Shadow of the Rose.

Perhaps the number of copies published played a role?
 
Yeah, I should remove short run stuff like Heat Wave and Horsemeat, add Scarlet and Shadow of the Rose, remove Alpha Beat, etc. But Scarlet was actually a pretty short run, and Shadow of the Rose is less than 800 copies...or what about Poems and Drawings? So much stuff is questionable...

I guess it's subjective to a point. The early chapbooks and Wormwood books are short runs, but still important. So where is the line? I would tend to think the intentional collector's items that BSP made with no intention of taking mass market should all be removed.

I'll rework that designation. I'm thinking anything post 1970 (or generally post BSP) that wasn't mass market should be excluded from the "major" designation.

Which leaves 51:

1960 Flower, Fist and Bestial Wail
1962 Run With the Hunted
1962 Longshot Pomes for Broke Players
1962 Poems and Drawings
1963 It Catches My Heart In Its Hands
1965 Cold Dogs in the Courtyard
1965 Crucifix in a Deathhand
1965 Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live with Be...
1966 All The Assholes In The World and Mine
1968 At Terror Street and Agony Way
1968 Poems Written Before Jumping Out Of An 8 Story Win...
1969 Notes of a Dirty Old Man
1969 The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over The Hills
1970 Fire Station
1972 Mockingbird Wish Me Luck
1972 Erections, Ejaculations and General Tales of Ordin...
1973 South of No North
1974 Burning in Water Drowning in Flame
1975 Factotum
1977 Love is a Dog From Hell
1978 Women
1979 Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument ...
1979 Shakespeare Never Did This
1981 Dangling in the Tournefortia
1982 Ham On Rye
1983 Bring Me Your Love
1983 Tales of Ordinary Madness
1983 Hot Water Music
1983 The Most Beautiful Woman in Town and Other Stories
1984 War All the Time
1984 There's No Business
1986 You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense
1988 The Roominghouse Madrigals
1989 Hollywood
1990 Septaugenarian Stew
1992 The Last Night of the Earth Poems
1993 Run With the Hunted
1994 Pulp
1996 Betting on the Muse
1997 Bone Palace Ballet
1998 The Captain is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have T...
1999 what matters most is how well you walk through the...
2000 Open All Night
2001 the night torn mad with footsteps
2002 Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line...
2004 The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain
2005 Slouching Toward Nirvana
2006 Come On In!
2007 The People Look Like Flowers At Last
2007 The Pleasures of the Damned
2008 Portions from a Wine-Stained Notebook




Okay, now that the important work is done, let's move on to the "who will be president" thing and solve that.
 
Alright, name each poem that is reproduced in more than one collection and cross-index that, please, with poems that mention the word "refrigerator" as in:

why is it that the pickup truck
carrying the loose refrigerator
on the freeway
is always going between
80 and 90 m.p.h.?
 
Which leaves 51:

Now your list is missing Post Office.

I can see why you'd include these, even if they showed up later:
1965 Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live with Be...
1966 All The Assholes In The World and Mine
1970 Fire Station

But including all of these seems like "padding:"
1972 Erections, Ejaculations and General Tales of Ordin...
1983 Tales of Ordinary Madness
1983 The Most Beautiful Woman in Town and Other Stories
 
But including all of these seems like "padding:"

not really.

'Erections' is a valid volume.
unfortunately it's not available anymore. still it's valid.

the other two are valid, because they are the only way these stories are published (available outside the collectors market) nowadays.
 

you're right. this poetry-idea was a little dismissed here.

[...] Callone's intro to "Portions" (for instance, Callone asserts that the charity ward incident was '55 but the buk.net timeline says '54 based on correspondence and hospital receipts) [...]

I'd say, there is no final clarity about this date.
Both have valid arguments on their side and we aren't sure what this 1954 receipt was really about.



but since you mentioned (even slight) inaccurateness in 'Portions':

according to the source notes (p.253) the 'Portions'-article (p. 20ff) was published in 1960 - according to the introduction (p. xii), it was written in 1959 and published 1961. according to the text, at least we see it WAS written in 1959 ("I'll be 39 in & near 7 days", p. 20).

of course, the world keeps turning around without that exact knowledge ...
 
Here, allow me to muddy the waters further. According to Krumhansl, these are the primary publications that are not broadsides. So which of them are really "books"?

1960 Flower, Fist And Bestial Wail
1960 A Signature Of Charles Bukowski Poetry
1961 Signature 2
1961 A Charles Bukowski Album
1962 Poems And Drawings
1962 Longshot Pomes For Broke Players
1962 Run With The Hunted
1963 It Catches My Heart In Its Hands
1964 Grip The Walls
1965 Crucifix In A Deathhand
1965 Cold Dogs In The Courtyard
1965 Confessions Of A Man Insane Enough To Live With Beasts
1966 The Genius Of The Crowd
1966 All The Assholes In The World And Mine
1967 2 Poems
1967 The Curtains Are Waving
1968 At Terror Street And Agony Way
1968 Poems Written Before Jumping Out Of An 8 Story Window
1969 Notes Of A Dirty Old Man
1969 A Bukowski Sampler
1969 If We Take
1969 The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over The Hills
1970 Fire Station
1971 Post Office
1972 Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions And General Tales Of Ordinary Madness
1972 Me And Your Sometimes Love Poems
1972 Mockingbird Wish Me Luck
1973 While The Music Played
1973 South Of No North
1974 Burning In Water Drowning In Flame
1975 Africa, Paris, Greece
1975 Factotum
1976 The Last Poem And Tough Company
1976 Scarlet
1976 Art
1977 Maybe Tomorrow
1977 What They Want
1977 Love Is A Dog From Hell
1978 You Kissed Lilly
1978 We'll Take Them
1978 Women
1978 Legs, Hips And Behind
1979 A Love Poem
1979 Play The Piano Drunk Like A Percussion Instrument
1979 Shakespeare Never Did This
1981 Dangling In The Tournefortia
1982 The Last Generation
1982 A Fine Man A Fine Book
1982 Ham On Rye
1982 Horsemeat
1983 Sparks
1983 Bring Me Your Love
1983 Hot Water Music
1983 The Bukowski / Purdy Letters
1983 L'ubriacone (Barfly)
1983 The Most Beautiful Woman In Town And Other Stories
1983 Tales Of Ordinary Madness
1983 Aftermath
1984 One For The Old Boy
1984 There's No Business
1984 War All The Time
1984 Barfly
1984 Horses Don't Bet On People
1984 Going Modern
1984 Blow 6
1985 Alone In A Time Of Armies
1985 Cornered
1986 The Wedding
1986 Gold In Your Eye
1986 The Day It Snowed In L.A.
1986 You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense
1986 Relentless As The Tarantula
1987 Luck
1987 The Movie: "Barfly"
1987 Bukowski Photographs 1977-1987
1987 A Visitor Complains Of My Disenfranchise
1988 The Movie Critics
1988 The Roominghouse Madrigals
1988 Beauti-Ful & Other Long Poems
1989 Red
1989 If You Let Them Kill You They Will
1989 Hollywood
1990 We Ain't Got No Money, Honey
1990 Septuagenarian Stew
1990 Not Quite Bernadette
1990 This
1990 Darkness & Ice
1991 In The Morning And At Night
1991 New Censorship Vol 2 No. 3
1991 In The Shadow Of The Rose
1991 A Couple Of Winos
1991 People Poems
1992 Now
1992 The Last Night Of The Earth Poems
1992 The New Censorship Vol. 3 No. 1
1992 Three Poems
1993 Those Marvelous Lunches
1993 Bukowski. Photographs 1977-1991
1993 Run With The Hunted
1993 New Censorship Vol. 4 No. 2
1993 Screams From The Balcony
1994 Between The Earthquake
1994 Pulp
1995 Confession Of A Coward
1995 Shakespeare Never Did This
1995 Jaggernaut
1995 Heat Wave
1995 Living On Luck
1996 The Laughing Heart
1996 Betting On The Muse
1996 The Iris Prints
1997 A New War
1997 Bone Palace Ballet
1997 The Captain Is Out To Lunch
1998 To Lean Back Into It
1998 The Captain Is Out To Lunch
1999 The Singer

Then 13 more (not counting the Ecco's "Celebrating Hank's 143rd Birthday!" junk) since Krumhansl was published:

1999 What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through The Fire
2000 Popcorn In The Dark
2000 Open All Night
2001 Pink Silks
2001 The Night Torn Mad With Footsteps
2002 Sifting Through The Madness For The Word, The Line, The Way
2002 The Simple Truth
2004 The Flash Of Lightning Behind The Mountain
2005 Slouching Toward Nirvana
2006 Come On In!
2007 The People Look Like Flowers At Last
2007 The Pleasures Of The Damned
2008 Portions From A Wine-Stained Notebook

For a total of 130! But Krumhansl has entries I never understood. Stuff like The Wedding, or The Iris Prints, books with no real Bukowski writing in them.

So there they all are. People are always asking for a list of his books. ;) Sort and categorize to suit yourself.

I think a better categorization than "Major" may be "In print." It's more useful to newbies who probably read these lists and go to Barnes & Noble looking for Relentless As The Tarantula, or Cold Dogs In The Courtyard...
 
[...] I think a better categorization than "Major" may be "In print."
It's more useful to newbies who probably read these lists and go to Barnes & Noble looking for Relentless As The Tarantula, or Cold Dogs In The Courtyard...

Both categorizations have a point.


Thanks for the work!
 
Okay, so there's an actual checklist of the 200 or so "primary publications" here.

The list is made from everything in Krumhansl and also Bill's updated list, which is around here somewhere. Apparently I don't have to ask you to correct me if there are any omissions. ;)

It's a serious checklist, but as you can see, the introduction is kind of sarcastic. I put that in there because I may link to it from the site navigation, just for the perverse thought of someone new to Bukowski's work running around their home town trying to check all those little boxes.

I know that would probably never happen, and on top of that it's really wrong, but I may have to do it anyway.
 
I'd say, there is no final clarity about this date.
To me there's no doubt about this: the charity ward episode took place on April, 1954. He says as much a in at least two letters.

For a total of 130! But Krumhansl has entries I never understood. Stuff like The Wedding, or The Iris Prints, books with no real Bukowski writing in them.
I used to think the same ;)
 
Just be patient. If it had already been published, now no one would know the mystery behind the Penny Poetry broadside... as well as many other mysteries: have you ever seen copies of Xenia and Nexus? ;)
 
And what about Cruelty of Loveless Love?
I know it was very limited,
but aren't all of those poems still uncollected anywhere else?
 
And what about Cruelty of Loveless Love? I know it was very limited, but aren't all of those poems still uncollected anywhere else?
Most are collected, but I added it.

It would be a lot easier to cut this thing off after 1994. ;)
 
Fair enough... :) ... there you go.

But I'll trade half a dozen post 1994 lettered BSP books for a fine copy of Run with the hunted or Flower, Fist & Bestial Wail.
 
[...] took place on April, 1954. He says as much a in at least two letters.

but doesn't he also say - WAY more often - that he was 35 when it happened?
of course the spring of 1955 would also not fit (34), but spring 1954 he's 33!

also all the other happenings in 1955 (quitting PO for 'ill health', marriage to Barbara Fry) would make sense in that context.

of course i haven't seen all the sources You have.
one day i will and then i'll understand.
 
have you ever seen copies of Xenia and Nexus? ;)
I recently found a copy of NEXUS, Vol. 3, No. 2, Issue 15, edited by Jerome Kulek [San Francisco, March-April 1967]. The database and Dorbin show that it contains a poem titled “Tough Luck” (Dorbin C374), but this issue has no Bukowski contribution. Dorbin doesn't cite any page number, so perhaps a copy was not examined...
 
"tough luck" is a great, short, funny poem that should appear in Storm. It's a little bit on the wild side, a little bit on the macho side. I wouldn't say it's a masterpiece, but it's a solid poem that should have been published a long time ago.
 
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