Recurring Bukowski themes you do / don't appreciate (1 Viewer)

[privileged]

I'm not big on the horse poems, and the poems where he talks about the fact that no one likes his horse poems aren't favorites either. And the ones about cats I'm not so into.

I do like that he repeatedly refers to his great legs, and that he liked to drink in his "shorts" in order to show them off, and that he repeatedly has ladies compliment them.

 

[roni]

i like it when he gets polemic about the human condition.

 

[Short Bus]

The cat poems are some of my favourites-particularly the one when being interviwed-Buk is asked about influences so he holds up the cat, one that been beaten, crushed, shot, but still alive.Sadly the interviewer ignores the message and asks about Celine.
That poem is mint and (to me) the essence of Bukowski's spirit.

 

[Purple Stickpin]

And the horse/racetrack poems are among some of my favorites. To each their own indeed.

 

[Gerard K H Love]

I have always loved horses and cats and Bukowski poems have accentuated that love. Bukowski wrote about too many subjects to count and he has opened my eyes to different ways of looking at many of them.

 

[Father Luke]

Late nights alone with the 'typer.
I love those poems.

 

[bluebottle]

i have always had the dream of putting together a "system" for the track based on buk's essays, stories, and poems - pointers, tips, etc. - esp. because he always railed against the impossibility of figuring the horses out. one of my fave poems - might've been a story - was when he won big and got a woman to come back to the hotel room with him only to find he had been set up - i forget the rest, but what matters most was that he walked away from it.

 

[1fsh2fsh]

Bukowski's animal poems have always been favorites with me. (and the lurid stuff of course) (but not lurid with animals!) I share his feelings about the disgust with the human race and the innocence and purity of animals. one of my favorite lines is where he wrote of watching his cat "stride with wisdom from down thu the centurys" I think that he used this line or variations of it numerous times. a couple of my all time favorite poems are "the mocking bird" and the one where his dog "kicks the shit" out of some proffessor's dog. when you think of it he actually wrote alot of animal poems, even poems about insects.

 

[hank solo]

one of my fave poems - might've been a story - was when he won big and got a woman to come back to the hotel room with him only to find he had been set up - i forget the rest, but what matters most was that he walked away from it.

That's Fooling Marie - and it was both a story and a poem. More recycling.

 

[number6horse]

I love the cat poems from Bukowski, not just for the words themselves, but for the natural parallels between himself and the average alley cat. I think most of the cats he ever took in were strays, right ? (maybe he and Linda Lee adopted some from shelters?). Vagrants of all kinds seemed welcome, as if he couldn't bear to kick anyone/anything back into the street. A certain empathy and sensitivity is really alive in Buk's cat poems, I think. A survival theme. He understood survival.

 

[rjwink666]

I'm not big on the horse poems

Yes, I'm not too keen either on anything connected to the race track. Though I think it's more to do with my own personal views on gambling / betting then Bukowski's ability to set the scene.

 

[ROC]

That's Fooling Marie - and it was both a story and a poem. More recycling.

I don't think he 'walks away' from that one.
I think he is left in the hotel room with no car, no clothes, no money and no alibi.

If that memory is correct, I much prefer it that way.
Hopeless.
Resigned.

If I've got it wrong we'll add it to the long, long list.

And recycling is good for the poetic environment, ja?
Buk was just doing his bit.

 

[hank solo]

Yes the gambling man in Fooling Marie is screwed over, but I'm sure that's what bluebottle was referring to. Personally, I imagine that this story is just a story.

 

[Gerard K H Love]

I've read the story where a guy ( not Chinaski?) gets taken by an attractive blonde who leaves him naked in a motel. That sounds like an old Horse Track Myth, but then again it could be a common scam. I heard the story third or fourth hand years before I read his short story. Just more of his great writing genius.

 

[HarryC13]

Funny, I just read that story -- again -- over the past weekend. For anyone interested in looking it up and checking it out, "Fooling Marie" is the last story in Hot Water Music.

GOODBYE, BUDDAH!:)

 

[esart]

I think I like the introspective poems, and the ones about humanity - the thread that runs through the masses vs. how he sees himself in the midst of it all, which is where we connect and relate to him. That too is a thread that runs through a lot of humanity, I mean, when we are talking about people as individuals and not as a whole. We relate to how he sees what is wrong/disappointing about people and how alienating it can be to those of us with both compassion and hatred of people, and the conflict begins a kind of stirring in the pit of the celiac plexus. Well, at least it does for me.

 

[Gerard K H Love]

For those of us....( well me anyway ) here is the link:
celiac plexus

It is clear that esart has been to medical school. Or watches the hell out of Grey's Anatomy.;)

 

[HarryC13]

I don't think he 'walks away' from that one.
I think he is left in the hotel room with no car, no clothes, no money and no alibi.

If that memory is correct, I much prefer it that way.
Hopeless.
Resigned.

If I've got it wrong we'll add it to the long, long list.

And recycling is good for the poetic environment, ja?
Buk was just doing his bit.

You're absolutely right, ROC. (Warning: spoiler ahead!) He takes a shower and she disappears: "Then Ted realized that his clothes were gone. His underwear, his shirt, his pants, his car keys and wallet, his cash, his shoes, his stockings, everything." And the woman has scrawled the words "GOODBYE BUDDAH" on the mirror. "He had no idea what to do next ... He sat, looking out, not moving, watching the cars passing back and forth."

Oh, and on the topic of this thread, I like the stories and poems where he lets the sensitive side coexist with the gruff hardass Bukowski, with "The Bluebird" being a prime example.

 

[MatG]

Go lose money at the track and his horse-racing poems come alive.
(based on anecdotal, yet extensive personal research)

 

[Corndog]

I agree with Father Luke.....

The late night isolation and his musing on the human condition........