Henry Charles Bukowski was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural and economic ambience of his home city of
Los AngelesLos Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
. It is marked by an emphasis on the ordinary lives of poor Americans, the act of writing, alcohol, relationships with women and the drudgery of work. Bukowski wrote thousands of poems, hundreds of short stories and six novels, eventually publishing over sixty books. In 1986
TimeTime is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
called Bukowski a "laureate of American lowlife". Regarding Bukowski's enduring popular appeal,
Adam KirschAdam Kirsch is an American poet and literary critic.-Early life and education:Kirsch is the son of lawyer, author, and biblical scholar Jonathan Kirsch, and a 1997 graduate of Harvard College.-Career:...
of
The New YorkerThe New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
wrote, "the secret of Bukowski’s appeal. . . [is that] he combines the confessional poet’s promise of intimacy with the larger-than-life aplomb of a pulp-fiction hero."
Charles Bukowski, Beasts Bounding Through Time, 1986
"It's 4:30 in the morning, it's always 4:30 in the morning."
We're all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.
If you want to know who your friends are, get yourself a jail sentence.
An intellectual is a man who says a simple thing in a difficult way; an artist is a man who says a difficult thing in a simple way.
The difference between a brave man and a coward is a coward thinks twice before jumping in the cage with a lion. The brave man doesn't know what a lion is. He just thinks he does.
I was given the job of milking the cows, finally, and it got me up earlier than anybody. But it was kind of nice, pulling at those cows' tits (pg. 172).
Show me a man who lives alone and has a perpetually clean kitchen, and eight times out of nine I'll show you a man with detestable spiritual qualities.
My ambition is handicapped by my laziness.
Henry Charles Bukowski was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural and economic ambience of his home city of
Los AngelesLos Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
. It is marked by an emphasis on the ordinary lives of poor Americans, the act of writing, alcohol, relationships with women and the drudgery of work. Bukowski wrote thousands of poems, hundreds of short stories and six novels, eventually publishing over sixty books. In 1986
TimeTime is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
called Bukowski a "laureate of American lowlife". Regarding Bukowski's enduring popular appeal,
Adam KirschAdam Kirsch is an American poet and literary critic.-Early life and education:Kirsch is the son of lawyer, author, and biblical scholar Jonathan Kirsch, and a 1997 graduate of Harvard College.-Career:...
of
The New YorkerThe New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
wrote, "the secret of Bukowski’s appeal. . . [is that] he combines the confessional poet’s promise of intimacy with the larger-than-life aplomb of a pulp-fiction hero."
Early years
Charles Bukowski was born as
Heinrich Karl Bukowski in
AndernachAndernach is a town in the district of Mayen-Koblenz, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, of currently about 30,000 inhabitants. It is situated towards the end of the Neuwied basin on the left bank of the Rhine between the former tiny fishing village of Fornich in the north and the mouth of the...
,
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, to Heinrich Bukowski and Katharina (née Fett). Charles' mother was a native German and his father was an American serviceman.
[Charles Bukowski (2009) Barry Miles. Random House, 2009]
ISBN 9780753521595Charles' paternal grandfather Leonard had emigrated to America from Germany in the 1880s. In Cleveland, Leonard met Emilie Krausse who had emigrated from Danzig, then part of Germany. They married and settled in Pasadena. He worked as a carpenter, setting up his own very successful construction company. The couple had four children, including Henry, Charles Bukowski's father.
Charles Bukowski's parents met in
AndernachAndernach is a town in the district of Mayen-Koblenz, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, of currently about 30,000 inhabitants. It is situated towards the end of the Neuwied basin on the left bank of the Rhine between the former tiny fishing village of Fornich in the north and the mouth of the...
, in Western Germany following
World War IWorld War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, the poet's father posted as a sergeant in the American army of occupation following Germany's defeat in 1918.
He had an affair with Katherina, the German sister of a friend, and she quickly fell pregnant. Charles Bukowski repeatedly claimed to be born out of wedlock, but Andernach marital records indicate that his parents married one month prior to his birth.
His father set himself up as a building contractor, set to make great financial gains in the aftermath of the war. After two years that family moved to Pfaffendorf. Given the crippling reparations being required of Germany and high levels of inflation Henry was unable to make a living, and so he decided to move the family back to America. On April 23 1923 they sailed from
BremerhavenBremerhaven is a city at the seaport of the free city-state of Bremen, a state of the Federal Republic of Germany. It forms an enclave in the state of Lower Saxony and is located at the mouth of the River Weser on its eastern bank, opposite the town of Nordenham...
to Baltimore, Maryland, where they settled. Wanting a more Anglophone name, Bukowski's parents began calling their son 'Henry', which the poet would later change to Charles. They altered the pronunciation of the family name from buːˈkɒfski to buːˈkaʊski , Bukowski's parents were Roman Catholic.
The family settled in South Central Los Angeles in 1930, the city where Charles Bukowski's father and grandfather had previously worked and lived.
In the '30s the poet's father was often unemployed. In the autobiographical
Ham on RyeHam on Rye is a 1982 semi-autobiographical novel by American author and poet Charles Bukowski. Written in the first person, the novel follows Henry Chinaski, Bukowski’s thinly-veiled alter ego, during his early years...
Charles Bukowski says that, with his mother's acquiescence, his father was frequently abusive, both physically and mentally, beating his son for the smallest imagined offence. During his youth Bukowski was shy and socially withdrawn, a condition exacerbated during his teens by an extreme case of
acneAcne vulgaris is a common human skin disease, characterized by areas of skin with seborrhea , comedones , papules , pustules , Nodules and possibly scarring...
. Neighborhood children ridiculed his German accent and the clothing his parents made him wear. Although he seemed to suffer from Dyslexia, he was highly praised at school for his art work.
In his early teens, Henry had an epiphany when he was introduced to alcohol by his loyal friend William "Baldy" Mullinax, depicted as "Eli Lacross" in
Ham on Rye, son of an alcoholic surgeon. "This [alcohol] is going to help me for a very long time", he later wrote, describing the genesis of his chronic alcoholism; or, as he saw it, the genesis of a method he could utilize to come to more amicable terms with his own life.
[ After graduating from Los Angeles High School]Los Angeles High School is the oldest public high school in the Southern California Region and in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Its colors are blue and white and the teams are called the Romans....
, Bukowski attended Los Angeles City CollegeLos Angeles City College, known as LACC, is a public community college in the East Hollywood section of Los Angeles, California. A part of the Los Angeles Community College District, it is located on Vermont Avenue south of Santa Monica Boulevard...
for two years, taking courses in art, journalism, and literature, before quitting at the start of World War II. He then moved to New York to begin a career as a writer.
On July 22, 1944, with World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
ongoing, Bukowski was arrested by FBI agents in Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaPhiladelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
, where he was living at the time, on suspicion of draft evasion. He was held for 17 days in Philadelphia's Moyamensing PrisonMoyamensing Prison was a prison in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, designed by Thomas U. Walter and completed in 1835.-History:The prison's cornerstone was laid April 2, 1832, and it was finished in 1835...
. Sixteen days later he failed a psychological exam that was part of his mandatory military entrance "physical" and was given a Selective Service Classification of 4-F (unfit for military service).
Early writing
When Bukowski was 24, his short story, "Aftermath of a Lengthy Rejection Slip", was published in StoryStory was a magazine founded in 1931 by journalist-editor Whit Burnett and his first wife, Martha Foley, in Vienna, Austria. Showcasing short stories by new authors, 67 copies of the debut issue were mimeographed in Vienna, and two years later, Story moved to New York City where Burnett and Foley...
magazine. Two years later, another short story, "20 Tanks from Kasseldown", was published by the Black Sun PressThe Black Sun Press was an English language book publisher founded in 1927 as Éditions Narcisse by poet Harry Crosby and his wife Caresse Crosby , American expatriates living in Paris...
in Issue III of Portfolio: An Intercontinental QuarterlyPortfolio: An Intercontinental Quarterly was a cross-disciplinary literary journal published between 1945 and 1947. It was edited by Caresse Crosby and published through her Black Sun Press. Only six issues were published, each totaling about 1000 copies. Each issue was a series of loose sheets...
, a limited-run, loose-leaf broadside collection printed in 1946 and edited by Caresse Crosby. Failing to break into the literary world, Bukowski grew disillusioned with the publication process and quit writing for almost a decade, a time that he referred to as a "ten-year drunk." These "lost years" formed the basis for his later semi-autobiographical chronicles, although they are fictionalized versions of Bukowski's life through his highly stylized alter-ego, Henry Chinaski.
During part of this period he continued living in Los Angeles, working at a pickle factory for a short time but also spending some time roaming about the United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, working sporadically and staying in cheap rooming houses. In the early 1950s, Bukowski took a job as a fill-in letter carrier with the U.S. Postal ServiceThe United States Postal Service is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States...
in Los Angeles but resigned just before he reached three years' service.
In 1955 he was treated for a near-fatal bleeding ulcer. After leaving the hospital he began to write poetry. In 1957 he agreed to marry small-town Texas poet Barbara Frye, sight unseen, but they divorced in 1959. According to Howard SounesHoward Sounes is a British author, journalist and biographer.Howard Sounes began his career as a newspaper journalist as a staff reporter for the Sunday Mirror. He broke major stories concerning one of the most notorious murder cases in British criminal history, that of Fred West and Rosemary West...
's Charles Bukowski: Locked in the Arms of a Crazy LifeLocked in the Arms of a Crazy Life, a book by Howard Sounes, published in 1998 by Grove Press, is a biography of American writer Charles Bukowski....
she later died under mysterious circumstances in IndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. Following his divorce Bukowski resumed drinking and continued writing poetry.
1960s
By 1960, Bukowski had returned to the post office in Los Angeles where he began work as a letter filing clerk, a position he held for more than a decade. In 1962, he was traumatized by the death of Jane Cooney Baker, the object of his first serious romantic attachment. Bukowski turned his inner devastation into a series of poems and stories lamenting her passing. Jane is considered to be the greatest love of his life and was the most important in a long series of muses who inspired his writing, according to biographer Jory Sherman. In 1964 a daughter, Marina Louise Bukowski, was born to Bukowski and his live-in girlfriend Frances Smith-Biography:Frances Dean Smith was born Frances Elizabeth Dean, in San Rafael, California, on March 19, 1922. During her childhood her family moved to the East Coast, where she grew up....
, whom he referred to as a "white-haired hippieThe hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
," "shack-job," and "old snaggle-tooth.".
Jon and Louise Webb, now recognized as giants of the post-war 'small-press movement', published The OutsiderThe Outsider was a 1960s literary magazine published by Loujon Press. "The Outsider" brought the work of Charles Bukowski to national attention, in addition to publishing work by such notable writers as Jack Kerouac and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, along with artwork by Noel Rockmore.Loujon Press was...
literary magazine and featured some of Bukowski's poetry. Under the Loujon Press imprint, they published Bukowski's It Catches My Heart in Its Hands in 1963 and Crucifix in a Deathhand in 1965.
Beginning in 1967, Bukowski wrote the column "Notes of a Dirty Old Man" for Los Angeles' Open CityOpen City was a weekly underground newspaper published in Los Angeles by avant-garde journalist John Bryan from May 6, 1967 to April 1969. It was noted for its coverage of radical politics, rock music, psychedelic culture and the "Notes of a Dirty Old Man" column by Charles Bukowski.-Founder:John...
, an underground newspaper. When Open City was shut down in 1969, the column was picked up by the Los Angeles Free PressThe Los Angeles Free Press , also called “the Freep”, was among the most widely distributed underground newspapers of the 1960s. It is often cited as the first such newspaper...
as well as the hippie underground paper NOLA ExpressNOLA Express is a singular publication started in 1967 in New Orleans as part of the Underground Free Press movement of the 1960s that protested the Vietnam War and other government policies along with social hypocrisies...
in New Orleans. In 1969 Bukowski and Neeli CherkovskiNeeli Cherkovski: Neeli Cherkovski: Neeli Cherkovski: (born Nelson Cherry, 1945, Santa Monica, California, Cherkovski grew up in San Bernardino, California. Cherkovski has resided in San Francisco since 1975 where he is known as a poet and memoirist. In the 1970s he was a political consultant in...
launched their own short-lived mimeographed literary magazine, Laugh Literary and Man the Humping GunsLaugh Literary and Man the Humping Guns was a mimeographed literary magazine published between 1969 and 1971 in Los Angeles, California by Charles Bukowski and Neeli Cherkovski . The original title was to be "Laugh Literary and Man the Fucking Guns," but Cherkovski convinced Bukowski to...
. They produced three issues over the next two years.
Black Sparrow years
In 1969 Bukowski accepted an offer from Black Sparrow Press publisher John MartinJohn Martin was the founder of Black Sparrow Press. He was in the book business for 36 years, retiring in 2002. He is most noted for helping to launch the literary career of Charles Bukowski and re-publishing the catalog of John Fante. He sold 650 titles annually, with more than $1 million in...
and quit his post office job to dedicate himself to full-time writing. 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." Less than one month after leaving the postal service he finished his first novel, Post Office. As a measure of respect for Martin's financial support and faith in a relatively unknown writer, Bukowski published almost all of his subsequent major works with Black Sparrow Press. An avid supporter of small independent presses, he continued to submit poems and short stories to innumerable small publications throughout his career.
Bukowski embarked on a series of love affairs and one-night trysts. One of these relationships was with Linda KingLinda King is an American sculptor and poet. She was the girlfriend of American writer Charles Bukowski for several years in the early 1970s....
, a poet and sculptress. Critic Robert PetersRobert Louis Peters is a poet, critic, scholar, playwright, editor, and actor born in an impoverished rural area of northern Wisconsin in 1924. He holds a Ph.D in Victorian literature. His poetry career began in 1967 when his young son Richard died unexpectedly of spinal meningitis...
viewed the debut of Linda King’s play The Tenant in which she and Bukowski starred back in the 1970s in Los Angeles. This play was a one-off performance. His other affairs were with a recording executive and a 23-year-old redhead; he wrote a book of poetry as a tribute of his love for the latter, titled, "Scarlet" (Black Sparrow Press, 1976). His various affairs and relationships provided material for his stories and poems. Another important relationship was with "Tanya", pseudonym of "Amber O'Neil" (also a pseudonym), described in Bukowski's "Women" as a pen-pal that evolved into a weekend tryst at Bukowski's residence in Los Angeles in the 1970s. "Amber O'Neil" later self-published a chapbook about the affair entitled "Blowing My Hero."
In 1976, Bukowski met Linda Lee Beighle, a health food restaurant owner, aspiring actress and devotee of Meher BabaMeher Baba , , born Merwan Sheriar Irani, was an Indian mystic and spiritual master who declared publicly in 1954 that he was the Avatar of the age....
, leader of an Indian religious society. Two years later Bukowski moved from the East Hollywood area, where he had lived for most of his life, to the harborside community of San PedroSan Pedro is a port district of the city of Los Angeles, California, United States. It was annexed in 1909 and is a major seaport of the area...
, the southernmost district of the City of Los Angeles. Beighle followed him and they lived together intermittently over the next two years. They were eventually married by Manly Palmer HallManly Palmer Hall was a Canadian-born author and mystic. He is perhaps most famous for his 1928 work The Secret Teachings of All Ages.-Early years:...
, a Canadian-born author and mystic, in 1985. Beighle is referred to as "Sara" in Bukowski's novels Women and Hollywood.
Death
Bukowski died of leukemiaLeukemia or leukaemia is a type of cancer of the blood or bone marrow characterized by an abnormal increase of immature white blood cells called "blasts". Leukemia is a broad term covering a spectrum of diseases...
on March 9, 1994, in San Pedro, California, aged 73, shortly after completing his last novel, PulpPulp is the last completed novel by Los Angeles poet and writer Charles Bukowski. It was published in 1994, shortly before Bukowski's death. He began writing it in 1991 and encountered several problems during its creation...
. The funeral rites, orchestrated by his widow, were conducted by Buddhist monks. An account of the proceedings can be found in Gerald Locklin's book Charles Bukowski: A Sure Bet. His gravestone reads: "Don't Try", a phrase which Bukowski uses in one of his poems, advising aspiring writers and poets about inspiration and creativity. Bukowski explained the phrase in a 1963 letter to John William CorringtonJohn William Corrington was an American movie and television writer, novelist, poet and lawyer. He received a B.A. degree from Centenary College, in 1956 and his M.A. from Rice University in 1960, the year he took on his first teaching position in the English Department at Louisiana State University...
: "Somebody at one of these places [...] asked me: 'What do you do? How do you write, create?' You don't, I told them. You don't try. That's very important: 'not' to try, either for Cadillacs, creation or immortality. You wait, and if nothing happens, you wait some more. It's like a bug high on the wall. You wait for it to come to you. When it gets close enough you reach out, slap out and kill it. Or if you like its looks you make a pet out of it."
In 2007 and 2008 there was a movement to save Bukowski's bungalow at 5124 De Longpre Ave. from destruction. The campaign was spearheaded by preservationist Lauren Everett. The cause was covered extensively in the local and international press, including a feature in Beatdom magazine, and was ultimately successful. The bungalow subsequently was listed as a Los AngelesLos Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
Historic-Cultural MonumentLos Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments are sites in Los Angeles, California, which have been designated by the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission as worthy of preservation based on architectural, historic and cultural criteria.-History:...
called Bukowski Court. The cause was criticized by some as cheapening Bukowski's "outsider" reputation.
Work
Bukowski published extensively in small literary magazines and with small presses beginning in the early 1940s and continuing on through the early 1990s. These poems and stories were later republished by Black Sparrow Press (now HarperCollinsHarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...
/ECCO) as collected volumes of his work. In the 1980s he collaborated with illustrator Robert CrumbRobert Dennis Crumb —known as Robert Crumb and R. Crumb—is an American artist, illustrator, and musician recognized for the distinctive style of his drawings and his critical, satirical, subversive view of the American mainstream.Crumb was a founder of the underground comix movement and is regarded...
on a series of comic books, with Bukowski supplying the writing and Crumb providing the artwork.
Bukowski also performed live readings of his works, beginning in 1962 on radio station KPFKKPFK is a listener-sponsored radio station based in North Hollywood, California, United States, which serves the Greater Los Angeles Area, and also streams 24 hours a day via the Internet...
in Los Angeles and increasing in frequency through the 1970s. Drinking was often a featured part of the readings, along with a combative banter with the audience. By the late 1970s Bukowski's income was sufficient to give up live readings. His last international performance was in October 1979 in VancouverVancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
, British ColumbiaBritish Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
. It was released on DVD as There's Gonna be a God Damn Riot in Here. In March 1980 he gave his very last reading at the Sweetwater club in Redondo BeachRedondo Beach is one of the three Beach Cities located in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The population was 66,748 at the 2010 census, up from 63,261 at the 2000 census. The city is located in the South Bay region of the greater Los Angeles area.Redondo Beach was originally part of...
, which was released as Hostage on audio CD and The Last StrawThe Last Straw is a film documenting the very last live poetry reading given by Charles Bukowski, even though he lived and wrote for another 14 years. The reading was given at The Sweetwater, a music club in Redondo Beach, California on March 31, 1980...
on DVD.
Bukowski 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 bitch on the street corner and half of them you have already messed around with. 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."
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", an image he tried to live up to with sometimes riotous public poetry readings and boorish party behaviour. Since his death in 1994 Bukowski has been the subject of a number of critical articles and books about both his life and writings. 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. According to ECCO, the 2007 release The People Look Like Flowers At Last will be his final posthumous release as now all his once-unpublished work has been published.
In June 2006 Bukowski's literary archive was donated by his widow to the Huntington Library in San Marino, CaliforniaSan Marino is a small, affluent city in Los Angeles County, California. Incorporated in 1913, the City founders designed the community to be uniquely residential, with expansive properties surrounded by beautiful gardens, wide streets, and well maintained parkways...
. Copies of all editions of his work published by the Black Sparrow Press are held at Western Michigan UniversityWestern Michigan University is a public university located in Kalamazoo, Michigan, United States. The university was established in 1903 by Dwight B. Waldo, and as of the Fall 2010 semester, its enrollment is 25,045....
which purchased the archive of the publishing house after its closure in 2003.
Film depictions
Bukowski: Born Into This, a film documenting the author's life, was released in 2003. It features contributions from Sean PennSean Justin Penn is an American actor, screenwriter and film director, also known for his political and social activism...
, Tom WaitsThomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
, Harry Dean StantonHarry Dean Stanton is an American actor, musician, and singer. Stanton's career has spanned over fifty years, which has seen him star in such films as Paris, Texas, Kelly's Heroes, Dillinger, Alien, Repo Man, The Last Temptation of Christ, Wild at Heart, The Green Mile and The Pledge...
and BonoPaul David Hewson , most commonly known by his stage name Bono , is an Irish singer, musician, and humanitarian best known for being the main vocalist of the Dublin-based rock band U2. Bono was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, and attended Mount Temple Comprehensive School where he met his...
(U2U2 are an Irish rock band from Dublin. Formed in 1976, the group consists of Bono , The Edge , Adam Clayton , and Larry Mullen, Jr. . U2's early sound was rooted in post-punk but eventually grew to incorporate influences from many genres of popular music...
's song "Dirty Day" was dedicated to Bukowski when released in 1993). In 1981, the Italian director Marco Ferreri made a film, Storie di ordinaria follia aka Tales of Ordinary MadnessTales of Ordinary Madness is a 1981 film by Italian director Marco Ferreri. It was shot in English in the USA, featuring Ben Gazzara and Ornella Muti in the leading roles...
, loosely based on the short stories of Bukowski; Ben Gazzara-Early life:Gazzara was born Biagio Anthony Gazzara in New York City, the son of Italian immigrants Angelina and Antonio Gazzara, who was a laborer and carpenter. Gazzara grew up on New York's tough Lower East Side. He actually lived on E. 29th Street and participated in the drama program at...
played the role of Bukowski's character.
BarflyBarfly is a 1987 American film which is a semi-autobiography of poet/author Charles Bukowski during the time he spent drinking heavily in Los Angeles. The screenplay by Bukowski was commissioned by the French film director Barbet Schroeder – it was published, with illustrations by the author, in...
(1987) starred Mickey RourkePhilip Andre "Mickey" Rourke, Jr. is an American actor, screenwriter and retired boxer, who has appeared primarily as a leading man in action, drama, and thriller films....
as Henry ChinaskiHenry Charles "Hank" Chinaski is the semi-autobiographical protagonist of several works by the American writer Charles Bukowski. He appears in five of Bukowski's novels, a number of his short stories and poems, and the 1987 film Barfly. An author character, Chinaski's biography is largely based on...
(Bukowski) and Faye DunawayFaye Dunaway is an American actress.Dunaway won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Network after receiving previous nominations for the critically acclaimed films Bonnie and Clyde and Chinatown...
as Wanda Wilcox (his lover). Sean PennSean Justin Penn is an American actor, screenwriter and film director, also known for his political and social activism...
had offered to play the part of Chinaski (Bukowski) for as little as a dollar as long as his friend Dennis HopperDennis Lee Hopper was an American actor, filmmaker and artist. As a young man, Hopper became interested in acting and eventually became a student of the Actors' Studio. He made his first television appearance in 1954 and appeared in two films featuring James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause and Giant...
would provide direction, but the European director Barbet SchroederBarbet Schroeder is a Franco-Swiss movie director and producer who started his career in French cinema in the 1960s, working together with directors such as Jean-Luc Godard and Jacques Rivette.-Life and career:...
had invested many years and thousands of dollars in the project and Bukowski felt Schroeder deserved to make it. Bukowski wrote the screenplay for the film and appears as a bar patron in a brief cameo.
A film adaptation of FactotumFactotum is a 2005 film directed by Bent Hamer, adapted from the novel of the same name by Charles Bukowski. The script also makes use of poems published in What Matters Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire and The Days Run Aways Like Horses Over the Hill as well as some of Bukowski's notebook...
, starring Matt DillonMatthew Raymond "Matt" Dillon is an American actor and film director. He began acting in the late 1970s, gaining fame as a teenage idol during the 1980s.- Early life :...
, Lili TaylorLili Anne Taylor is an American actress notable for her appearances in such award-winning indie films as Mystic Pizza, Say Anything..., Short Cuts and I Shot Andy Warhol, and the acclaimed TV show Six Feet Under....
, and Marisa TomeiMarisa Tomei is an American stage, film and television actress. Following her work on As The World Turns, Tomei came to prominence as a supporting cast member on The Cosby Show spinoff A Different World in 1987...
, was released in 2005.
In 2011, the actor James FrancoJames Edward Franco is an American actor, film director, producer, screenwriter, author, painter, performance artist and instructor at New York University. He left college in order to pursue acting and started off his career by making guest appearances on television series in the 1990s...
publicly stated that he is in the process of making a film adaptation of Bukowski's novel Ham on RyeHam on Rye is a 1982 semi-autobiographical novel by American author and poet Charles Bukowski. Written in the first person, the novel follows Henry Chinaski, Bukowski’s thinly-veiled alter ego, during his early years...
. He is currently writing the script with his brother David Franco and explained that his reason for wanting to make the film is because "Ham on Rye is one of my favorite books of all time."
Novels
- Post Office (1971)
- Factotum (1975)
- Women (1978)
- Ham on Rye
Ham on Rye is a 1982 semi-autobiographical novel by American author and poet Charles Bukowski. Written in the first person, the novel follows Henry Chinaski, Bukowski’s thinly-veiled alter ego, during his early years...
(1982)
- Hollywood (1989)
- Pulp
Pulp is the last completed novel by Los Angeles poet and writer Charles Bukowski. It was published in 1994, shortly before Bukowski's death. He began writing it in 1991 and encountered several problems during its creation...
(1994)
Poetry collections
- Flower, Fist, and Bestial Wail (1960)
- Poems and Drawings (1962)
- Longshot Poems for Broke Players (1962)
- Run with the Hunted (1962)
- It Catches My Heart in Its Hands (1963)
- Crucifix in a Deathhand (1965)
- Cold Dogs in the Courtyard (1965)
- The Genius of the Crowd (1966)
- 2 by Bukowski (1967)
- The Curtains Are Waving (1967)
- At Terror Street and Agony Way (1968)
- Poems Written Before Jumping Out of an 8 story Window (1968)
- A Bukowski Sampler (1969)
- The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills (1969)
- Fire Station (1970)
- Mockingbird Wish Me Luck (1972)
- Me and Your Sometimes Love Poems (1972)
- While the Music Played (1973)
- Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame (1974)
- Africa, Paris, Greece (1975)
- Scarlet (1976)
- Maybe Tomorrow (1977)
- Legs, Hips and Behind (1978)
- Love Is a Dog from Hell (1977)
- Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit (1979)
- Dangling in the Tournefortia (1982)
- War All the Time (book)|War All the Time (1984)
- Horses Don't Bet on People & Neither Do I (1984)
- You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense (1986)
- The Roominghouse Madrigals (1988)
- Beauti-ful & Other Long Poems (1988)
- Septuagenarian Stew: Stories & Poems (1990)
- People Poems (1991)
- The Last Night of the Earth Poems (1992)
- Betting on the Muse: Poems and Stories (1996)
- Bone Palace Ballet (book)|Bone Palace Ballet (1998)
- What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire. (1999)
- Open All Night (book)|Open All Night (2000)
- The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps (2001)
- Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way (2003)
- As Buddha smiles (2003)
- The Flash of the Lightning Behind the Mountain (2004)
- Slouching Toward Nirvana (2005)
- Come on In! (2006)
- The People Look Like Flowers at Last (2007)
- The Pleasures of the Damned (2007)
- The Continual Condition (2009)
Short story chapbooks and collections
- Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live with Beasts (1965)
- All the Assholes in the World and Mine (1966)
- Notes of a Dirty Old Man
Notes of a Dirty Old Man is a collection of underground newspaper articles written by Charles Bukowski that were retrieved and published from Essex House in the Open City newspapers and into the paperback series Notes of a Dirty Old Man. His short series was written with a crude humor yet truthful...
(1969)
- Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions, and General Tales of Ordinary Madness
Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions, and General Tales of Ordinary Madness was a paperback collection of short stories by Charles Bukowski, first published by City Lights Publishers in 1972. It was the first collection of Bukowski's stories to be published, and it was republished in two volumes in...
(1972) ISBN 978-0872860612
- South of No North (1973)
- Hot Water Music
Hot Water Music is a collection of short stories by Charles Bukowski, published in 1983 by Black Sparrow Press. The collection deals largely with: drinking, women, gambling, and writing...
(1983)
- Tales of Ordinary Madness
Tales of Ordinary Madness is one of two collections of short stories by Charles Bukowski that City Lights Publishers culled from its 1972 paperback volume Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions, and General Tales of Ordinary Madness. . Both volumes were first published in 1983 and remain in print....
(1983)
- The Most Beautiful Woman in Town
The Most Beautiful Woman in Town & Other Stories is a collection of anecdotal short stories by American author Charles Bukowski. The stories are written in both the first and third-person, in Bukowski's trademark semi-autobiographical short prose style. In keeping with his other works, themes...
(1983)
- Portions from a Wine-stained Notebook: Short Stories and Essays
Portions From a Wine-Stained Notebook is written by Charles Bukowski, edited by David Stephen Calonne, and published by City Lights.-Table of Contents:*Aftermath of a Lengthy Rejection Slip*20 Tanks From Kasseldown*Hard Without Music...
(2008) ISBN 978-0872864924.
- Absence of the Hero (2010)
- More Notes of a Dirty Old Man
More Notes of a Dirty Old Man: The Uncollected Columns is written by Charles Bukowski, edited by David Calonne, and published by City Lights. It includes newspaper columns and essays that have never been collected and published together....
(2011)
Nonfiction books
- Shakespeare Never Did This (1979); expanded (1995)
- The Bukowski/Purdy Letters (1983)
- Screams from the Balcony: Selected Letters (1993)
- Living on Luck: Selected Letters, vol. 2 (1995)
- The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship
The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship is a collection of extracts from the journals of Charles Bukowski, spanning 1991 to 1993. The book was first published in 1997 with illustrations by Robert Crumb...
(1998)
- Reach for the Sun: Selected Letters, vol. 3 (1999)
- Beerspit Night and Cursing: The Correspondense of Charles Bukowski and Sheri Martinelli (2001)
Films
- Bukowski at Bellevue 1970 – Poetry Reading
- Supervan 1977 – Feature Film (Not based on Bukowski's work but Bukowski had cameo appearance as Wet T-Shirt Contest Water Boy)
- There's Gonna Be a God Damn Riot in Here – Filmed: 1979; DVD Release: 2008 – Poetry Reading
- The Last Straw – Filmed: 1980; DVD Release: 2008 – Poetry Reading
- Tales of Ordinary Madness
Tales of Ordinary Madness is a 1981 film by Italian director Marco Ferreri. It was shot in English in the USA, featuring Ben Gazzara and Ornella Muti in the leading roles...
– Feature Film
- Poetry In Motion
The term Poetry in Motion may refer to:*Poetry in Motion, a professional wrestling double-team maneuver.*Poetry in Motion , a #1 hit song by Johnny Tillotson *Poetry in Motion , a documentary film...
1982 – General Poetry Documentary (Bukowski is a featured interviewee/talking head)
- Barfly
Barfly is a 1987 American film which is a semi-autobiography of poet/author Charles Bukowski during the time he spent drinking heavily in Los Angeles. The screenplay by Bukowski was commissioned by the French film director Barbet Schroeder – it was published, with illustrations by the author, in...
1987 – Feature Film
- Crazy Love 1987 – Feature Film (Belgium)
- Bukowski: Born Into This 2002 – Biographical Documentary
- Factotum
Factotum is a 2005 film directed by Bent Hamer, adapted from the novel of the same name by Charles Bukowski. The script also makes use of poems published in What Matters Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire and The Days Run Aways Like Horses Over the Hill as well as some of Bukowski's notebook...
2005 – Feature Film
- The Suicide 2006 – Short film
- One Tough Mother 2010 Released on DVD – Poetry Reading
Major biographies and bibliographies
- Hugh Fox
Hugh Bernard Fox Jr. was a writer, novelist, poet and anthropologist and one of the founders of the Pushcart Prize for literature...
– Charles Bukowski: A Critical and Bibliographical Study (1969)
- Neeli Cherkovski
Neeli Cherkovski: Neeli Cherkovski: Neeli Cherkovski: (born Nelson Cherry, 1945, Santa Monica, California, Cherkovski grew up in San Bernardino, California. Cherkovski has resided in San Francisco since 1975 where he is known as a poet and memoirist. In the 1970s he was a political consultant in...
– Hank: The Life of Charles Bukowski (1991)
- Russell Harrison
Russell Harrison is a New Zealand television presenter, vocalist and musician, best known as presenter for the televised weekly Lotto draw.-Film and Television Career:...
– Against The American Dream: Essays on Charles Bukowski (1994)
- Gay Brewer
Gay Robert Brewer, Jr. was an American professional golfer who played on the PGA Tour and won the 1967 Masters Tournament....
– Charles Bukowski: Twayne's United States Authors Series (1997)
- Howard Sounes
Howard Sounes is a British author, journalist and biographer.Howard Sounes began his career as a newspaper journalist as a staff reporter for the Sunday Mirror. He broke major stories concerning one of the most notorious murder cases in British criminal history, that of Fred West and Rosemary West...
– Charles Bukowski: Locked in the Arms of a Crazy LifeLocked in the Arms of a Crazy Life, a book by Howard Sounes, published in 1998 by Grove Press, is a biography of American writer Charles Bukowski....
(1998)
- Ben Pleasants – Visceral Bukowski (2004)
- David Charlson – Charles Bukowski: Autobiographer, Gender Critic, Iconoclast
CHARLES BUKOWSKI: AUTOBIOGRAPHER, GENDER CRITIC, ICONOCLAST is a short book by David Charlson.The project originated at the University of Kansas in the Nineties as the first doctoral dissertation on the prose and poetry of Charles Bukowski...
- Aaron Krumhansl – A Descriptive Bibliography of the Primary Publications of Charles Bukowski (Black Sparrow Press, 1999)
- Al Fogel – Charles Bukowski: A Comprehensive Price Guide & Checklist, 1944–1999 (2000)
- Sanford Dorbin – A Bibliography of Charles Bukowski (Black Sparrow Press, 1969)
- Pamela Wood – "Charles Bukowski's Scarlet" (Sun Dog Press, 2010; ISBN 978-0-941543-58-3)
External links