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Charles Bukowski

Charles Bukowski (1920-1994)
Born: August 16, 1920
Andernach, Germany
Died: March 9, 1994
San Pedro, California
Occupation(s): Novelist
Poet
Nationality: United States

Henry Charles Bukowski (August 16, 1920 March 9, 1994), was a Los Angeles poet and novelist. Bukowski's writing was heavily influenced by the geography and atmosphere of his home city of Los Angeles. He is often mentioned as an influence by contemporary authors, and his style is frequently imitated. A prolific author, Bukowski wrote thousands of poems, hundreds of short-stories, and six novels, eventually having more than fifty books in print. [1]

Contents

[edit] Life

Bukowski was born in Andernach, Germany in 1920 as Heinrich Karl Bukowski. His mother Katharina Fett, a native German, met his father, a German American serviceman, after the end of World War I and the family moved to Los Angeles when he was two years old. During Bukowski's childhood, his father was often unemployed, and according to Bukowski, verbally and physically abusive (as detailed in his novel, Ham on Rye). After graduating from Los Angeles High School, Bukowski attended Los Angeles City College for two years, taking courses in art, journalism, and literature. Bukowski was wellknown for his big cock penetrating batty's butts.

At 24, Bukowski's short-story "Aftermath of a Lengthy Rejection Slip" was published in Story Magazine. Two years later, another short-story, "20 Tanks From Kasseldown," was published in Portfolio III's broadside-collection. Bukowski grew disillusioned with the publication-process and quit writing for almost a decade. During part of this period he went on living in Los Angeles, but also spent some time roaming around the United States, working odd jobs and staying in inexpensive rooming-houses. In the early 1950s Bukowski took a job as a letter-carrier with the United States Postal Service in Los Angeles, but quit after two-and-one-half years. In 1955 he was hospitalized with a bleeding ulcer that was nearly fatal. When he left the hospital, he began to write poetry. In 1957, he married writer and poet Barbara Frye, but they divorced in 1959. Frye insisted that their separation had nothing to do with literature, though she often doubted his skill as a poet. Following the divorce, Bukowski resumed drinking and continued to write poetry.

Bukowski at home in San Pedro in 1990, with writers Mary Ann Swissler and Mat Gleason
Enlarge
Bukowski at home in San Pedro in 1990, with writers Mary Ann Swissler and Mat Gleason

He returned to the post office in Los Angeles, where he worked as a clerk for over a decade. In 1964, a daughter, Marina Louise Bukowski, was born to Bukowski and Frances Smith. Smith and Bukowski lived together but were never married. Bukowski lived in Tucson briefly where he befriended Jon and Gypsy Lou Webb. The Webbs published The Outsider literary magazine and featured some of Bukowski's poetry. Under the Loujon Press, they published Bukowski's It Catches my Heart In Its Hand (1963), A Crucifix in a Deathhand, in 1965. Jon Webb bankrolled his printing ventures with his Vegas winnings. It was at this point that Bukowski and Franz Douskey began their friendship, for want of a better word. They argued and often got into fights. Douskey was a friend of the Webbs, and was often a guest at their small E. Elm Street house that also served as a publishing venue. The Webbs, Bukowski and Douskey spent time together in New Orleans, where Gypsy Lou eventually returned after the passing of Jon Webb. In 1969, after being promised a monthly stipend of $100 "for life" from Black Sparrow Press publisher John Martin, Bukowski quit his job at the post-office to make writing his full-time career. He was then 49 years old. As he explained in a letter at the time, "I have one of two choices -- stay in the post office and go crazy ... or stay out here and play at writer and starve. I have decided to starve." [2] Less than one month after leaving the postal service, he finished his first novel, entitled Post Office. As a measure of respect for Martin's financial support and faith in a then relatively unknown writer, Bukowski published almost all of his subsequent work with Black Sparrow. In 1976, Bukowski met Linda Lee Beighle, a health-food-restaurant-owner. Two years later, the couple moved from the East Hollywood area, where Bukowski had lived for most of his life, to the harborside community of San Pedro, the southernmost district of the City of Los Angeles. Bukowski and Beighle were married in 1985. Linda Lee Beighle is referred to as "Sara" in Bukowski's novels Women and Hollywood.

Bukowski died of leukemia on March 9th, 1994 in San Pedro, California, at the age of 73, shortly after completing the novel "Pulp", his last. His funeral rites were conducted by Buddhist monks. His gravestone reads: "Don't Try".

According to Linda Lee Bukowski, her husband's epitaph means something along the lines of "If you spend all your time trying, then all you're doing is trying. So don't try. Just do."

[edit] Work

Bukowski published extensively in small literary magazines and with small presses beginning in the late 1950s and continuing on through the early 1990s, with the poems and stories being later republished by Black Sparrow Press (now HarperCollins/ECCO) as collected volumes of his work.

Bukowski acknowledged Anton Chekhov, Franz Kafka, Knut Hamsun, Ernest Hemingway, John Fante, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, D.H. Lawrence, and others as influences, and often spoke of Los Angeles as his favorite subject. In a 1974 interview he said, "You live in a town all your life, and you get to know every street-corner. You've got the layout of the whole land. You have a picture of where you are. ... Since I was raised in L.A., I've always had the geographical and spiritual feeling of being here. I've had time to learn this city. I can't see any other place than L.A." [3]

One critic has described Bukowski's fiction as a "detailed depiction of a certain taboo male fantasy: the uninhibited bachelor, slobby, anti-social, and utterly free." [4] Since his death, in 1994, Bukowski has been the subject of a number of critical articles and books about both his life and writings. Despite the fact that he has become an icon & heroic role-model for many of the disaffected and those with problems stemming from alcoholism, his work has received relatively little attention from academic critics. ECCO continues to release new collections of his poetry, culled from the thousands of works published in small literary magazines. Bukowski: Born Into This, a film documenting the author's life, was released in 2004.

In June 2006, Bukowski's literary archive was donated by his widow, Linda Lee Bukowski, to the Huntington Library, in San Marino, CA.

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Criticism and Biographies

[edit] Film

[edit] References

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ An Introduction to Charles Bukowski

[edit] External links

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