Sparrow (1 Viewer)

mjp

Founding member
Does anyone have a list of the Sparrow issues with Bukowski poems (and the poem titles)?

It seems that there are only two issues in the database and I'm pretty sure he had poems in more than two.
 
5: While the Music Played, February 1973 (50 c)
The Egg
The Knifer
The Ladies of Summer
I'm in Love
The Apple
The Violin Player
5 Dollars
Cooperation
The Night I was Going to Die
2347 Duane
A Radio with Guts

30: Africa, Paris, Greece, March 1975 (50 c)
Solid State Marty
Interviews
Face of a Political Candidate on a Street Billboard:
Yankee Doodle
Blue Moon, Oh Bleweeww Mooooon How I Adore You!
Nothing is as Effective as Defeat
Success
Africa, Paris, Greece

54: Maybe Tomorrow, March 1977 (75 c)
The Drunk Tank Judge
Claws of Paradise
The Loner
The Sandwich
The Happy Life of the Tired
The Proud Thin Dying
Under
Hot Month
Maybe Tomorrow

72: We'll Take Them, September 1978 ($1.00)
Junk
8 Rooms
I Liked Him
The Killer Smiles
Horse and Fist
Close Encounters of Another Kind
Mermaid
Hug the Dark
59 Cents a Pound
Promenade
Metamorphosis
We'll Take Them

Note: I took the liberty of normalizing the title formats. in 5 and 30 they appear in ALL CAPS and in 54 and 72 they appear in all lower case. Also, both Sparrow entries in the DB have issues. #14 is listed as having been published in 1960 (!) and contains "The Loser." I don't know about that, but it's my understanding that he only appeared in 5, 30, 54 and 72. The second entry lists the correct publication month and year for Africa, Paris, Greece, but doesn't list any other poems.
 
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No problem; my pleasure, but I'm curious how the DB organizes the order of poems. For example, Sparrow 54 shows the poems in correct order while the other three have them jumbled. I don't mean to make more work for you and the Sparrow issues aren't paginated, so it doesn't really matter, but do you designate the order of the poems when you make entries in the DB?
 
do you designate the order of the poems when you make entries in the DB?
No, they are ordered by page number. If there's no page number, they aren't ordered by anything (or rather they're ordered by the way the query pulls them up, which varies depending on the query).

Now they're ordered by title if there's no page number. Just made that adjustment.
 
Has anyone ever notice that all four issues of Sparrow that have Bukowski poems in them are all from "Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit"?

That seems strange to me for some reason. I wonder what Martin's rationale was for doing that.
 
Has anyone ever notice that [...]
Now we have. Thanks to your spot-on observation.

I wonder what Martin's rationale was for doing that.
Given the SPARROW-publication-dates (1973, '75, '77, '78) in relation to the "Play-The-Piano"-publ.-date (1979), my guess would go the other way 'round:

Maybe J.Martin first selected the 40 poems for the 4 SPARROWs over the years, then decided to make a book out of the set, adding some more to flesh-up.

This would also explain the striking thin-ness of "Play-Piano".

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