When did you discover Bukowski? (1 Viewer)

The first Bukowski work I ever encountered was the vinyl record, "Bukowski Reads His Poetry" on Takoma, when the radio station I spin for got a promo copy. Live performance, grade-b sound quality as I recall, but my mind was blown nonetheless!
 
I heard the recording from 70 Minutes of Buk reading Genius of the Crowd in a German skateboarding video called The Strongest of the Strange. I immediately bought Sifting Through the Madness and have worked my way through some of the books from Buk's lifetime since then.
 
Slouching towards nirvana -> Mockingbird wish me luck -> Factotum -> Ham on rye, women & Post office (same day read) and then :sifting, last night of the earth, the captain is out to lunch, the flash of lightning. Hoping to get my hands on: hot water music, ordinary tales and Pulp
 
Actually, I was a huge punk and hardcore fan, and while in a bookstore one day, I noticed a book entitled "Hot Water Music," which was one of my favorite bands at the time. (For anyone who knew Hot Water Music, this was before their Epitaph days. This was even before "Finding the Rhythms" came out.) I read the short stories, and thought they were really weird, but really well written and managed to capture my attention, leaving me to want to read more. Now, one of my life's goals is to own every book Bukowski ever put out. I know that this will be difficult, especially finding a copy of his real early shit like "Flower, Fist and Bestial Wail." (by the way, I have close to 30 of his books now.)
 
Funny, I remember Hot Water Music from the emo scene way back. I grew up in Pennsylvania where there was a pretty large hardcore scene. It was until I discovered Buk many years later that I realized where Hot Water Music came from.
 
4 or 5 years ago i was watching an interview on tv with samantha morton (british acress) she was really raving about this book... ham on rye by charles bukowski
the way she was talking about it really got me going, i went out and bought it, loved it, read all the other books, short stories, poetry, which i love even though i dont like poetry, he showed me it didn't have to be stupid rhyming shit about things that have no interest to me
 
Hmmm
There is a song by Modest Mouse called 'Bukowski'
That's where I first heard of him
I then went to a bookstore, bought
Slouching Towards Nirvana
then read it, and started buying
like a maniac.

Ah, ambrosia.

-sean
 
Just about 20 years ago, a friend of mine turned me onto Burning in Water..., Dangling...etc. At first, I got more into Post Office and Women - I laughed out loud at night reading long into the early hours of the morning. Since then, I've picked up all the commonly available stuff, and still have most of the more recent posthumous books of poetry to devour over the next few years.
 
Post Office right after high school (the summer after I think). It's pretty much changed the way I look at anything/everything. I have much less confidence in other people and the world that I live in (aside from my parents, ironically).

It's interesting to see some of the 1-6 posters from long ago (especially the youngins). I suppose, though, that I am a youngin to a good portion of the people here (20 in FLA, started reading when I was 18).
 
"The most beautiful woman in town & other stories." 1987. I was 19, had just dropped out of the music program at Cal State Long Beach and was living in a filthy rental house with two other guys, trying to figure out what I was going to do with myself. Too proud to ask Dad for money. You know the drill.
 
Well this is my first time writing here, so what the hell...this seems like the perfect place to start.

First: I'm from Finland and might make some typos etc, so please forgive me...

Now, the first time I even heard of the name "Bukowski" was in a TV show called 'Gilmore Girls'. Well, there was this line: "typical for boys - worship Kerouac and Bukowski..." or something. I knew who Keroac was, but who's this "Bukowski"?
Later I went to the local library to find out if they had any books by this "Bukowski". There were few books, so I just chose one. It was 'Notes of a dirty old man'
I read the book and was amused, but that's about it (well maybe little disqusted too).

A year or two went by. I had graduated from school, and had started working in a warehouse, my first real job. I hated it. I began to think that if this is what it's going to be for the rest of my life, no thanks. I was hanging around the library a lot at the time, because I had no place else to go. I was really depressed, so I thought maybe that guy who had all those funny things to say could chear me up. I found a book called 'Post Office'. I was hooked right away. The man seemed to hate working as much as me! It was like a miracle! It really helped me. That book saved my life!

(Yeah I know...you wanted to know how I found out about Buk, not my life story...)
 
The man seemed to hate working as much as me!.. I found a book called 'Post Office'. I was hooked ... It was like a miracle! It really helped me. That book saved my life!

No matter how many times I reqad what Bukowski wrote about stuff like this, it
always tickles me to read it as it happens.

Nice to have you around, Finland.
 
first hear bukowski

I first heard about bukowski when I was 14 or 15. i used to sit in the back yard of my run-down house in these broken lawn chairs with my two favorite cousins listening to records while they smoked parliaments and discussed literature with me. I had just finished kerouac's subterraneans for the first time and thought myself wildly advanced for my age and asked to see what my older cousin was reading. He, instead of just handing it to me, started reading to me out of "Notes of a Dirty Old Man." I cant remember exactly what story it was but i loved it. Later in life (3 years later) I stumbled across copy in a book store when I had run away to San Diego and fell in love all over again. I've been obsessed ever since.
 
i was told that i wrote like him...so i looked into it and realized that whoever thought that was a complete idiot

from then on though i've been a fan

^ he told me he had been compared to him. lol.
so he sent me a few poems. i liked them but wasnt in love.

we read more bukowski - mostly things Beast had read
then on my birthday he sent me a copy of Post Office
and well, being that i work as a cashier in a parking lot
i hate my job, my boss and my customers and my father is a drunk

Hank was all too familiar to me. we had met before lol.

so i went on a reading rampage. (this site being part of it)
and luckily my best friend (Beast)
is a lover of him also. so we've bought a few of the same books at the same time.
discussed his work...ect.

i myself am a poet...and ive written various pieces were my alter ego
(The Filthy Girl Next Door [developed before i met The Dirty Old Man] writes Bukowski love letters. confessionals...ect)

anyway i am rambling.
so yes a dear friend gave me an even dearer love.
 
I read Burning in my late teens. Then watched Barfly. Then read Love is a dog, Then Post office, Women, Hollywood etc. I am about to read Factotum as it's one the few of his I haven't actually read along with Pulp.
Shocking!

I did hear that they were shite though so avoided them til now.
 
I was living in a roominghouse in Brisbane. I was in the bookstore looking for a book by Burroughs when I came across Bukowski's Ham and Rye. I read a bit of Rodey Doyles intro and remembering the movie Barfly, bought it.

I sat in the park reading it. I read it in day or two. Then went out and bought the rest of the stuff I could find.
 
First time I heard of Bukowski must have been in '87 when Barfly came out. I read somewhere that it was based on an actual person and this got me more interested in him. The thought of a drinking fighting burping farting poet / writer is a bit at odds with my possibly cliche'd ideas of these people
 
I kept seeing his name pop up in various magazines and newspapers. I think the first books I bought by him were South Of No North and Burning In Water. I would read all his prose from cover to cover and only browse through his poetry. It was years before I sat down and read all of his published poetry books. It was worth the effort though. Buk is one of the most underappreciated "great" poets of English Lit.
 
my first was Women, which I loaned to my high school english teacher which she left on her desk and of corse the school burnt down. Its been several years, I should really buy another copy...
 
When you say "of course the school burned down" do you mean that this is what always happens when a high school teacher leaves a Bukowski book on their desk?

Cool...
 
I discovered Bukowski a few years back when I first started writing poetry--and as *most* beginning poets, it rhymed. Apparently, to the users of the Livejournal poetry communities (where I posted them), they claimed that I had a fucked up meter and, in suggesting a poet to emulate, suggested Bukowski. To be honest, I looked him up and wasn't that much impressed.

Jump two-three years later. I'm on a one of those college trips that high schools allow you. I went to Northwestern Michigan College in Traverse City (Michigan, that is, since I live in Michigan). I stopped over to Petoskey on the way back and went into Horizons book store. I was looking through the stacks and noticed a blue book called "Post Office". I remembered looking up Buk awhile back and thought "shit, my as well." and bought it.

Been a fan ever since and consider him a major influence on my writing (prose and poetry).
 
I discovered Bukowski during a time I bummed around the city of Albuquerque. I had just dropped out my senior year in November and during the day I needed a place to go. I took the bus, skated, and walked every day to a little bookstore called Birdsong. I discovered Bukowski during a time when I needed someone most. I grew up with no father and a mother that demanded money from ME for all the LOVELY years she took care of me. And now... I can't put him down. Love is a dog from Hell helped me get though the day and continues helping me get though the night.

A nice evening in Albuquerque with a joint in my hand reciting lines of Bukowski is all that I can ask for.
 
I used to wander through bookstores hoping for something to catch my eye. Post Office and Women were the first. And I liked his name. Thought i'll give them a try, and from there too off. I was in eigth grade and felt like I was the only person who knew him then for finding him on my own. And not to sound like a bastard, I still take pride in that to this day.
 
I guess it was a girlfriend of mine 12 years ago who rented Barfly for us one night. I'm not sure if she was into it because of Buk or because she was in recovery. But, I didn't start reading his books until a few years later.
 
Unglamorous as it may sound, I first heard of Bukowski in that Paul Giamatti movie Sideways. Even though he (Bukowski) didn't write the line, I didn't know that then, and thought whoever did might be worth a read:

"I'm a thumb print on the window of a skyscraper. I'm a smudge of excrement on a tissue surging out to sea with a million tons of raw sewage."
 
"Contes de la folie ordinaire", puis "Nouveaux contres de la folie ordinaire", puis "Je t'aime Albert" etc, etc... All books in french version.
 
I think the first thing I read of Bukowski was in Italian, a translation of Bring me your love when I was still living in my village in Italy.
I borrowed it from my local library, and when I did so, the librarian called my father to let him know I was reading 'inappropriate books' for my age (I must have been 13 or 14 when I got it out on loan). And what did my father do? He told the librarian to fuck off. My father was a hero!
 
I borrowed it from my local library, and when I did so, the librarian called my father to let him know I was reading 'inappropriate books' for my age (I must have been 13 or 14 when I got it out on loan). And what did my father do? He told the librarian to fuck off. My father was a hero!


If only more people had open minds like your Father. He should make us all proud.

Bill
 
I think the first thing I read of Bukowski was in Italian, a translation of Bring me your love when I was still living in my village in Italy.
I borrowed it from my local library, and when I did so, the librarian called my father to let him know I was reading 'inappropriate books' for my age (I must have been 13 or 14 when I got it out on loan). And what did my father do? He told the librarian to fuck off. My father was a hero!


More power to you
 
i first heard buk's voice on a homemade cassette back in '85 when i was 17 or so, laughed out loud with the pal, jeff, who turned me onto it. on the other side of the tape was stuff like flipper, flux of pink indians, public image and talking heads. good stuff. buk's name always stuck with me, and one day in glacier park, mt, in the early '90's i noticed a new friend - hi kevin wherever you are - had "the days run away...", "hot water music", and "play the piano...." on his shelf. i said, oh, i know this guy! he was surprised as hell that some half breed indin stuck in montana would know this guy, and we became fast friends over buk. been reading him off and on ever since.
 

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