The issue isn't that Bukowski's "holy and untouchable" work has been edited or some sort of claim that Martin had no right to edit. I've never suggested that and it's never been the point. Of course some of the work was edited, and of course the editor(s) did have the right (and responsibility) to do so..
Yea, apologies for only just now having come across this thread and the article it relates to...
Dude, thank you very much for bringing this to the world's attention. You wrote about it in an easy to read style. Good clean lines.
Mind, I am only venting here. The article and example of Martin's changes has infuriated me. I am not directing my comments at you, MJP.
My god, you people are way too kind about this issue. Bukowski wrote in one of his collected letters that he had caught Martin finger-fucking his work and said he
"climbed him pretty hard for it". Bukowski was NEVER cool about Martin or ANYONE changing a
single WORD. He was appreciative of spelling corrections, but not the changing of words.
A poem is like a fucken painting, do you understand? If you don't, you're not a poet, and that's that! How many art dealers told Picasso or Renoir or Dali to change something about a particular painting? How many dealers took it upon themselves to paint over or "touch-up" one of those dude's paintings?
Yea, I know Bukowski sometimes said he wasn't precious about his writing---or made fun of people who were, but he bloody well fucking was! It's true for any word-artist. Each word is a paint stroke, bitch! Neither Buk nor Henry Miller or Mark Twain or V. Nabokov ever saw their writing as a
collaborative effort with some cunting editor! If you need an editor---THEN YOU'RE NOT A REAL FUCKEN WRITER. You're just an idiot dicking off with words like a baby playing with it's own poop.
Really, do you guys actually believe it is an editor's responsibility or right to molest someone's poem for any reason whatsoever? If you do, then you're not an artist. You have no backbone. You have no integrity. You're just a hack---a word whore. You don't give a damn what they do to your stuff just as long as they pay you for it.
Aside from the fine books he made out of Buk's manuscripts whilst Buk was alive, Martin
sucked as a publisher. He got lucky and ran the business on the back of Bukowski's work. All his other authors wrote diarrhea drivel---especially Paul Bowels. And Fante ain't no great shakes, either, not in this day and age. I can see how he was a breath of fresh air back when Buk first consumed his books, but the thing is, Buk exceeded him and wrote better and so nowadays Fante reads like a cheap Bukowski-imitation!
Man, I thought it was really peculiar how oddly different the posthumous stuff reads but I had just chalked it up to a lack of inspiration with no lack of wanting to make that typewriter sing...It really sickens me that I consumed those Martin-tainted poems...
So is there a movement or action committee to correct all the Martin-molested poems and post them in their original form here at this website? Or is that gonna be a violation of copyright?