When did you discover Bukowski? (3 Viewers)

In the late 80s I was working in a professional office. A newly hired guy liked to read Bukowski at his desk. He often wore headphones and sang out loud with the music no one else could hear, which often included vulgar language. I sat in a cube next to him and thought, wow, he won't last. Sure enough, he got fired quickly, but his comments about bukowski got me to check him out. I never wore headphones or sang vulgar lyrics for all to hear, but I eventually got fired, too, for my "bad attitude" towards an uptight middle manager, who had told us we were no longer allowed to socialize on the job unless we stayed late to make up for it. So I made a point of coming in late, taking long lunches, leaving early, and standing next to the manager's office to talk to friends. hmm, you don't think reading bukowski had anything to do with it???

btw, I'm new, just happened to stumble across this site today.
 
Erections, ejaculations, and tales of ordinary madness. I was 16 and I pulled it off my father's bookshelf along with the Artaud. Citylights effected my development greatly. When I opened it up, there was a page ripped from a porno mag with two naked women with their hands down a man's pants, and on the back was a Bukowski poem. I read the whole book.
 
My dad has always liked Bukowski I guess. When I was a kid I used to take Notes of a Dirty Old Man and try to read it. It was scary and intriguing. For some reason I thought that I shouldn't be reading his books, because they were so dirty, almost like porn, but when my dad found out that his boy was taking his Bukowski books he was more pleased than anything.

Now I read more Bukowski than he does, I suppose that phase of his life is done. Still, I'll share a good poem with him and he will only ever laugh and say "He is so fucking right."

Good 'ole Notes of a Dirty Old Man, the old decaying copy of it still freaks me out/makes me nostalgic.

Paul
 
In '75 I was a long-haired, long-legged hardbelly freshman in college. If I wasn't haunting the local bars, teasing any man that dared ventured near, I would be wandering the library till closing. One night I pulled Post Office off the shelf ....
 
ChinasBuk said:
"Contes de la folie ordinaire", puis "Nouveaux contres de la folie ordinaire", puis "Je t'aime Albert" etc, etc... All books in french version.
Click to expand...

my french is suffering... in the second one, did you mean "contes" instead of "contres", as in "new tales of ordinary madness"? what is the english edition of that book?
 
My first was Factotum this past June. When I finished the book, everything fell into place with an audible THUD. I have not looked at life the same way since.
 
My dad's always read him. 2001: I first read "South of No North" when I was 14. Since then Buk's been pretty much all I've read. I remember I was reading it during the free reading session in an English class. The teacher was a bit of a bully and would go around the class making kids read out loud. I was terrified. I remember I was reading the story "Stop staring at my tits mister". I didn't have to read out loud. I don't know what I would have done. I know that book off by heart, but I still read it regularly. It's my favourite. It's how I introduce people to Bukowski. "Woman Wanted", ah, what a great opener.

I love "Pulp". I'd like to be able to say it's my favourite, except that it's not really typical, and it requires a lot of background to be appreciated properly. Everytime I read it I get something else out of it.

I don't know why I haven't found this forum sooner. It's good to be here.
 
thebadges said:
... The teacher was a bit of a bully and would go around the class making kids read out loud. I was terrified. I remember I was reading the story "Stop staring at my tits mister". I didn't have to read out loud. I don't know what I would have done.
Click to expand...

cool

glad you're here.
 
My angry irish drunk friend, named Gene, lent me Post Office. This was sometime after highschool in the early 90's.

This forum was helped rekindle my interest and now I am rereading Women.
 
I was a big fan of Mickey Rourke and loved watching his older movies.Barfly was my fav so i found out that it was based on a book by Buk and,boom...became a fan.
 
this is my first post. i'm half expecting to be laughed off this site. i'm 17 years old, and read bukowski for the first time when i was about 14 or 15. i had never been one for poetry, but somehow i found myself in the poetry section of a massive borders in nyc. after poking and prodding at a few books, "You Get So Alone at Times, That it Just Makes Sense" called to me. as an angsty, alienated teen... the title was what sold me. i picked it up, opened to the first page, and have been a buk worshiper, and lover and creater of poetry ever since.
 
Hi dianoga. You'll find many here would say something similar... 'not a poetry fan' but we've all been caught by the Bukowski hook. And now we're here in the net :D

Welcome.
 
Welcome dianoga! I wasn't a poetry reader either before I started reading Buk's poetry. I think Buk's poetry has changed many people's mind about poetry...
 
Last edited by a moderator:
dianoga said:
this is my first post. i'm half expecting to be laughed off this site. i'm 17 years old, and read bukowski for the first time when i was about 14 or 15. i had never been one for poetry, but somehow i found myself in the poetry section of a massive borders in nyc. after poking and prodding at a few books, "You Get So Alone at Times, That it Just Makes Sense" called to me. as an angsty, alienated teen... the title was what sold me. i picked it up, opened to the first page, and have been a buk worshiper, and lover and creater of poetry ever since.
Click to expand...

Will someone please laugh dianoga off this site, so that they feel properly welcomed?

As you can tell, we're glad you're here. The way you found Charles Bukowski
seems a common experience. You were curious, something touched you about
his work, and then you became a fan. That's what happened with me also.

There is an introduce yourself kind of thread here (click)
if you would care to write a little more about yourself. Hope so. And I hope
you stick around and find out lots of cool things about Bukowski. There's a lot
to see here.

I'm glad you made it.
 
I'm in college. got bored reading plato though he's kinda cool. anyway, browsing in barnes and noble i stumbled upon this guy, bukowski, think i've heard him before. i buy the book ham on rye.. then factotum.. then women.. and then i said fuck plato..
 
Who would want to be such an asshole...

Well, I first heard the name Bukowski on a Modest Mouse song about a year or so ago... Since then I've been researching his work and found myself extremely engrossed by his works... So, I'm extremely new to not only this forum, but to Bukowski's writings, especially compared to most of you....
 
Post Office, which I bought on a whim at the age of 15 after finding out that one of my favourite bands, hell is for heroes, had named their label imprint Factotum, after the "great anti-capitalist novel by Charles Bukowski" (Kerrang's words, not the band's).
 
late summer nights in '97 & '98 a friend and i would meet up at country kitchen, drink coffee, smoke cigs, and read out loud to each other. the waitresses would sit with us on their breaks and listen and laugh bum cigs and bring more coffee. one night after i read a particularly long passage from crime and punishment, Matte took a book from his back pocket laid it flat and began reading and prancing about and singing and yelling. the book was women. i was flattened. i was blown away. i was turned on turned off lit up and thirsty ...
unreal, unthought of, wow ...
my journey began over coffee and a russian-speaking waitress. ha.
 
I first came across Buk in Beat Scene magazine - probably around 1991. I was strictly a traditional beat merchant and it used to piss me off seeing this Charles Bukowski character sending in his shite poems about his cats and stuff.

Eventually I took the bull by the horns and read Post Office then Women. I wasn't impressed. In fact - I thought he was such a phoney. I didn't believe a word. Especially of Women.

I can't remember why, but years later I picked them up again and they all made perfect sense. I guess I'd seen a bit of life by that time, and rather than being full of lies they told a stone cold truth. And continue to do so.

I even appreciate his cat poems nowadays.
 
Someone from some European country in some random online chat recommended Ask the Dust to me. I read the introduction and was impressed, finished the book, and went on to be a huge Fante fan.

A couple years later, I reread the introduction and finally realized I should try to find some Bukowski. My school's library had a copy of Run With the Hunted. I read a few poems and liked it. In fact, he was the first free verse\no rhyme poet I liked. Eventually I picked up Post Office and Ham on Rye and have now been involved in buying as many of the BSP books as possible. I'm still waiting to find a signed one in a bargain bin someplace ;)
 
Thanks for those links Ponder.

I hadn't read "...Tough Motherfucker" before (although remember reading about that cat in Buk's letters) - isn't it a beauty?

Will search out a copy of "War All The Time" to get it. Thanks again.
 

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