Henry Charles Bukowski (/buːˈkaʊski/ⓘboo-KOW-skee; bornHeinrich Karl Bukowski,German:[ˈhaɪnʁɪçˈkaʁlbuˈkɔfski]; August 16, 1920 – March 9, 1994) was aGerman-American poet, novelist, and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural, and economic ambience of his adopted home city ofLos Angeles.[4] Bukowski's work addresses the ordinary lives of poor Americans, the act of writing, alcohol, relationships with women, and the drudgery of work.
Bukowski published extensively in small literary magazines and with small presses beginning in the early 1940s and continuing on through the early 1990s. He wrote thousands of poems, hundreds of short stories and six novels, eventually publishing over sixty books during the course of his career, including hisPoems Written Before Jumping Out of an 8 Story Window, published by his friend and fellow poetCharles Potts, andBurning in Water, Drowning in Flame. His poems and stories were republished byJohn Martin'sBlack Sparrow Press (nowHarperCollins/Ecco Press) as collected volumes of his work. As a reviewer noted, "Bukowski continued to be, thanks to his antics and deliberate clownish performances, the king of the underground… stressing his loyalty to those small press editors who had first championed his work."[7]
Time called Bukowski a "laureate of American lowlife."[8]Adam Kirsch ofThe New Yorker 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 apulp-fiction hero."[9]
During his lifetime, Bukowski received little attention from academic critics in the United States, but was better received inWestern Europe, particularly theUnited Kingdom, and especiallyGermany, where he was born. Since his death in March 1994, Bukowski's life and writings have been the subject of a number of articles and books.
Charles Bukowski was born Heinrich Karl Bukowski inAndernach,Prussia,Weimar Germany. His father was Heinrich (Henry) Bukowski, an American of German descent who had served in theU.S. army of occupation afterWorld War I and had remained in Germany after his army service. His mother was Katharina (née Fett). His paternal grandfather, Leonard Bukowski, had moved to the United States fromImperial Germany in the 1880s. InCleveland, Ohio, Leonard met Emilie Krause, an ethnic German who had emigrated fromDanzig (nowGdańsk,Poland). They married and settled inPasadena, California, where Leonard worked as a successful carpenter. The couple had four children, including Heinrich (Henry), Charles Bukowski's father.[10][11] His mother, Katharina Bukowski, was the daughter of Wilhelm Fett and Nannette Israel.[12] The nameIsrael is widespread among Catholics in theEifel region.[13] Bukowski assumed his paternal ancestor had moved from Poland to Germany around 1780, as "Bukowski" is a Polish last name. As far back as Bukowski could trace, his whole family was German.[14]
Bukowski's parents met in Andernach following World War I. His father was German-American and a sergeant in theUnited States Army serving in Germany after the empire's defeat in 1918.[10] He had an affair with Katharina, a German friend's sister, and she subsequently became pregnant. Bukowski repeatedly claimed to beborn out of wedlock, but Andernach marital records indicate that his parents married one month before his birth.[10][15]
Afterwards, Bukowski's father became a building contractor, set to make great financial gains in the aftermath of the war, and after two years moved the family to Pfaffendorf (today part ofKoblenz). However, given thecrippling postwar reparations being required of Germany, which led to a stagnant economy and high levels of inflation, he was unable to make a living and decided to move the family to the U.S. On April 18, 1923, they sailed fromBremerhaven toBaltimore, Maryland, where they settled.[16]
His family moved toMid-City, Los Angeles,[17] in 1930.[10][15] Bukowski's father was often unemployed. In the autobiographicalHam on Rye, Bukowski says that, with his mother'sacquiescence, his father was frequentlyabusive, both physically and mentally, beating his son for the smallest imagined offense.[18][19] He later told an interviewer that his father beat him with arazor strop three times a week from the ages of six to 11 years. He says that it helped his writing, as he came to understand undeserved pain.[20]
Young Bukowski spoke English with a strong German accent and was taunted by his childhood playmates with the epithet "Heini," German diminutive of Heinrich, in his early youth. He was shy and socially withdrawn, a condition exacerbated during his teen years by an extreme case ofacne.[19] Neighborhood children ridiculed his accent and the clothing his parents made him wear. TheGreat Depression bolstered his rage as he grew, and gave him much of his voice and material for his writings.[21]
In his early teen years, Bukowski had an epiphany when he was introduced to alcohol by his friend William "Baldy" Mullinax, depicted as "Eli LaCrosse" inHam on Rye, son of an alcoholic surgeon. "This [alcohol] is going to help me for a very long time," he later wrote, describing a method (drinking) he could use to come to more amicable terms with his own life.[18] Bukowski attendedSusan Miller Dorsey High School for one year before transferring toLos Angeles High School.[22] After graduating from high school in 1939, Bukowski attendedLos Angeles City College for two years, taking courses in art, journalism, and literature, before quitting at the start ofWorld War II. He then moved to New York City to begin a career as a financially pinched blue-collar worker with hopes of becoming a writer.[19]
On July 22, 1944, with the war ongoing, Bukowski was arrested byFBI agents inPhiladelphia, where he lived at the time, on suspicion ofdraft evasion. At a time when the U.S. was at war withNazi Germany, and many Germans and German-Americans on the home front were suspected of disloyalty, Bukowski's German birth troubled the authorities. He was held for seventeen days in Philadelphia'sMoyamensing Prison. Sixteen days later, he failed a psychological examination that was part of his mandatory military entrance physical test and was given aSelective Service Classification of4-F (unfit for military service).[23][24]
When Bukowski was aged 23 (March–April 1944), his short story "Aftermath of a Lengthy Rejection Slip" was published inStory magazine. Two years later, another short story, "20 Tanks from Kasseldown", was published by theBlack Sun Press in Issue III ofPortfolio: An Intercontinental Quarterly, a limited-run, loose-leafbroadside collection printed in 1946 and edited byCaresse 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 semiautobiographical chronicles, and there are fictionalized versions of Bukowski's life through his highly stylized alter-ego, Henry Chinaski.[4]
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 U.S., working sporadically and staying in cheaprooming houses.[10] In the early 1950s, he took a job as a fill-inletter carrier with theUnited States Post Office Department in Los Angeles, but resigned just before he reached three years' service.
In the spring of 1954, Bukowski was treated for a near-fatal bleedingulcer. After leaving the hospital he began to write poetry.[10] The next year he agreed to marry small-town Texas poet Barbara Frye, but they divorced in 1958. Following his divorce, Bukowski resumed drinking and continued writing poetry.[10]
Several of Bukowski's poems were published in the late 1950s inGallows, a small poetry magazine published briefly (the magazine lasted for two issues) by Jon Griffith.[25] The smallavant-gardeliterary magazineNomad, published byAnthony Linick and Donald Factor (the son ofMax Factor Jr.), offered a home to Bukowski's early work.Nomad's inaugural issue in 1959 featured two of his poems. A year later,Nomad published one of Bukowski's best-known essays,Manifesto: A Call for Our Own Critics.[26]
By 1960, Bukowski had returned to the post office in Los Angeles and began work as a letter filing clerk, a position he held for more than a decade. In 1962, he was distraught over the death of Jane Cooney Baker, his first serious girlfriend. Bukowski turned his inner devastation into a series of poems and stories lamenting her death.[27]
5124 DeLongpre Avenue, Los Angeles, now Bukowski Court, where Bukowski resided from 1963 to 1972
E.V. Griffith, editor of Hearse Press, published Bukowski's first separately printed publication, a broadside titled "His Wife, the Painter," in June 1960. This event was followed by Hearse Press's publication of "Flower, Fist and Bestial Wail," Bukowski's firstchapbook of poems, in October 1960. "His Wife, the Painter" and three other broadsides ("The Paper on the Floor", "The Old Man on the Corner" and "Waste Basket") formed the centerpiece of Hearse Press's "Coffin 1", an innovative small-poetry publication consisting of a pocketed folder containing forty-two broadsides andlithographs which was published in 1964. Hearse Press continued to publish poems by Bukowski through the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s.[28]
Jon and Louise Webb, publishers of the literary magazineThe Outsider, featured some of Bukowski's poetry in its pages. Under the Loujon Press imprint, the Webbs published Bukowski'sIt Catches My Heart in Its Hands in 1963 andCrucifix in a Deathhand in 1965.
In 1964 a daughter, Marina Louise Bukowski, was born to Bukowski and his live-in girlfriendFrances Smith. She would be his only child.[27]
Bukowski was published by the independent British poetry magazine Iconolatre in 1966.[29] The editor, artist John Wilson McCracken, sent a copy of the magazine to Carl Weissner who would later become Bukowski’s longtime West German translator.[30]
In 1969, Bukowski accepted an offer fromBlack Sparrow Press publisherJohn Martin 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."[31] 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, which became a highly successful enterprise. An avid supporter of small independent presses, Bukowski continued to submit poems and short stories to innumerable small publications throughout his career.[19]
Bukowski embarked on a series of love affairs andone-night trysts. One of these relationships was withLinda King, a sculptor and poet. CriticRobert Peters reported seeing Bukowski as an actor in King's playOnly a Tenant, in which she and Bukowski stage-read the first act at the Pasadena Museum of the Artist. This was a one-off performance of what was a shambolic work.[32] Bukowski's other affairs were with a recording executive and a twenty-three-year-old redhead; he wrote a book of poetry as a tribute to 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 achapbook about the affair entitled "Blowing My Hero".[33]
In 1976, Bukowski met Linda Lee Beighle, a health food restaurant owner, rock-and-roll groupie, aspiring actress, heiress to a small Philadelphia "Main Line" fortune and devotee ofMeher Baba. Two years later he moved from theEast Hollywood area, where he had lived for most of his life, to the harborside community ofSan Pedro,[34] the southernmost district of Los Angeles. Beighle followed him and they lived together intermittently over the next two years. They were eventually married byManly Palmer Hall, a Canadian-born author, mystic, and spiritual teacher, in 1985. Beighle is referred to as "Sara" in Bukowski's novelsWomen andHollywood.
In the 1980s, Bukowski collaborated with cartoonistRobert Crumb on a series of comic books, with Bukowski supplying the writing and Crumb providing the artwork. Through the 1990s Crumb also illustrated a number of Bukowski's stories, including the collectionThe Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship and the story "Bring Me Your Love".[35]
Bukowski's live readings were legendary, with the drunk raucous crowd fighting with the drunk angry poet. In 1972, Joe Wolberg, who was the manager ofCity Lights Books in San Francisco, rented a hall and paid Bukowski to read his poems. A vinyl album was released by City Lights, which was re-issued byTakoma Records in 1980.[36]
In May 1978, Bukowski traveled toWest Germany and gave a live poetry reading of his work before an audience inHamburg. This was released as a double 12" L.P. stereo record titled "CHARLES BUKOWSKI 'Hello. It's good to be back.'"
His last international performance was in October 1979 inVancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and was released on DVD asThere's Gonna Be a God Damn Riot in Here. The reading was produced by fan/friend Dennis Del Torre, who rented a venue, Viking Hall, paid Bukowski and his wife Linda to fly up, hired a video crew, promoted the event, and sold tickets. The crowd and Bukowski were very drunk for the event. A heckler was near the stage and can be heard clearly. Del Torre later went to Bukowski's widow, Linda Bukowski, for permission to license it. He thought it was the last reading Bukowski gave, but Linda told him there was another reading after that in Redondo Beach, CA, in early 1980.[36][37]
In March 1980 he gave his very last reading at the Sweetwater music venue inRedondo Beach, California, which was released asHostage on vinyl and audio CD, andThe Last Straw on DVD, filmed and produced byJon Monday for mondayMEDIA.[38] In 2010 the unedited versions of bothThe Last Straw andRiot were released asOne Tough Mother on DVD.[36]
Henry Charles Bukowski Jr.'s grave in Green Hills Memorial Park
Bukowski died ofleukemia on March 9, 1994, in San Pedro, aged 73, shortly after completing his last novel,Pulp.[39] The funeral rites, orchestrated by his widow, were conducted byBuddhist monks. He is interred at Green Hills Memorial Park inRancho Palos Verdes. An account of the proceedings can be found inGerald Locklin's bookCharles 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 toJohn William Corrington: "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."
Bukowski's work was subject to controversy throughout his career.Hugh Fox claimed that hissexism in his poetry, at least in part, translated into his life. In 1969, Fox published the first critical study of Bukowski inThe North American Review, and mentioned his attitude toward women: "When women are around, he has to play Man. In a way it's the same kind of 'pose' he plays at in his poetry—Bogart,Eric Von Stroheim. Whenever my wife Lucia would come with me to visit him he'd play the Man role, but one night she couldn't come I got to Buk's place and found a whole different guy—easy to get along with, relaxed, accessible."[40]
In June 2006, Bukowski's literary archive was donated by his widow to theHuntington Library inSan Marino, California. Copies of all editions of his work published by the Black Sparrow Press are held atWestern Michigan University, which purchased the archive of the publishing house after its closure in 2003.
Ecco Press continues to release new collections of his poetry, culled from the thousands of works published in small literary magazines. According toEcco Press, the 2007 releaseThe People Look Like Flowers at Last will be his finalposthumous release, as now all his once-unpublished work has been made available.[41]
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."[31]
Bukowski also performed live readings of his works, beginning in 1962 on radio stationKPFK 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.[44] Bukowski could also be generous; for example, after a sold-out show atAmazingrace Coffeehouse inEvanston,Illinois, on November 18, 1975, he signed and illustrated over 100 copies of his poem "Winter," published byNo Mountains Poetry Project. By the late 1970s, Bukowski's income was sufficient to give up live readings.
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 behavior.[45]A few critics and commentators[46] also supported the idea that Bukowski was acynic, as a man and a writer. Bukowski denied being a cynic, stating: "I've always been accused of being a cynic. I think cynicism is sour grapes. I think cynicism is a weakness."[47]
Over half of Bukowski's collections have been published posthumously. Posthumous collections have been remarked as 'John Martinized'[48][49][failed verification], with the poems having been highly edited, at a level which was not present during Bukowski's lifetime.[50] One example of a popular poem, "Roll the Dice" (when comparing the original manuscript to "What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire"), themes such ashell andalcoholism are removed. The creative editing present includes changing lines from "against total rejection and the highest of odds"[51] to "despite rejection and the worst odds".[52][better source needed]
American bandRed Hot Chili Peppers reference Bukowski and his works in several songs; singerAnthony Kiedis has stated that Bukowski is a big influence on his writing.[53]
ThePoison Idea album "War All The Time" is named after a book of poems by Charles Bukowski.[54]
TheModest Mouse albumGood News for People Who Love Bad News contains a song “Bukowski” which balances sympathy for Bukowski’s point of view described in his writings with resentment for the degree of misery his lifestyle contains.
The singerHarry Styles stoppedOne Direction concerts to read Bukowski in 2014.[55] He later quoted "Old Man, Dead in a Room" in his song "Woman,"[56] and opened his 2021Love on Tour shows with a quote from "Style."[57]
MF DOOM's final solo studio album,Born Like This, was named after the opening line of Bukowski's poem "Dinosauria, We." A sample of Bukowski reading the poem was used in the opening of the track "Cellz."
TheDeath Grips song "Birds" is inspired by Bukowski's poem "Bluebird."
TheVolcano Choir song "Alaskans" features a recording of Bukowski reading a poem on French television.[58]
"Bluebird" by Miranda Lambert is claimed to be the first country song inspired by Charles Bukowski to reach Number 1 on industry charts.[59]
A 2006 musical comedy,Bukowsical!, by Spencer Green and Gary Stockdale, pokes fun at Bukowski's life and hipster image.[60]
Barfly, released in 1987, is a semi-autobiographical film written by Bukowski and starringMickey Rourke asHenry Chinaski, who represents Bukowski, andFaye Dunaway as his lover Wanda Wilcox.Sean Penn offered to play Chinaski for one dollar as long as his friendDennis Hopper would direct,[62] but the European directorBarbet Schroeder had invested many years and thousands of dollars in the project and Bukowski felt Schroeder deserved to make it. Bukowski wrote the screenplay, was given script approval,[62] and appears as a bar patron in a brief cameo.
The 1991 French filmLune Froide, directed byPatrick Bouchitey, was entered into the 1991 Cannes Film Festival, and is based on the short stories "The Copulating Mermaid of Venice" and "Trouble with the Battery."
In 2013, actorJames Franco directed a film simply titledBukowski, withJosh Peck playing the writer. Franco wrote the script with his brotherDave. The adaptation began shooting in Los Angeles on January 22, 2013, and was partially shot inOxford Square, a historic neighborhood of Los Angeles.[64] In April 2014, producer Cyril Humphris sued Franco, claiming that the film was an unauthorized adaptation of Bukowski'sHam on Rye, to which Humphris had the film rights.[65] The lawsuit was eventually settled in October 2014, but the film has not been released since.[66]
The 2018 filmBeautiful Boy, directed byFelix van Groeningen, features a scene where a recovering drug addict played byTimothée Chalamet reads part of Bukowski's poem "Let it Enfold You." The entirety of the poem is then read by Chalamet as a voice-over to the ending credits.[67]
^Dobozy, Tamas (2001). "In the Country of Contradiction the Hypocrite is King: Defining Dirty Realism in Charles Bukowski's Factotum".Modern Fiction Studies.47:43–68.doi:10.1353/mfs.2001.0002.S2CID170828985.
Dorbin, Sanford (1969).A Bibliography of Charles Bukowski, Black Sparrow Press.
Duval Jean-François (2002).Bukowski and the Beats followed by An Evening at Buk's Place: an Interview with Charles Bukowski. Sun Dog Press.ISBN0-941543-30-7.
Fogel, Al (2000).Charles Bukowski: A Comprehensive Price Guide & Checklist, 1944–1999.
Fox, Hugh (1969).Charles Bukowski: A Critical and Bibliographical Study.
Harrison, Russell (1994).Against The American Dream: Essays on Charles Bukowski.ISBN0-87685-959-7.
Krumhansl, Aaron (1999).A Descriptive Bibliography of the Primary Publications of Charles Bukowski. Black Sparrow Press.ISBN1-57423-104-9.
Wood, Pamela (2010).Charles Bukowski's Scarlet. Sun Dog Press.ISBN978-0-941543-58-3.
Roni (2020).Charles Bukowski Timeline.A special publication of the Charles-Bukowski-Society in cooperation with bukowski.net & Michael J. Phillips. MaroVerlag.ISBN978-3-87512-323-4.
