Go All the Way - From Pain to Passion with Charles Bukowski
- Kieran Can
- Aug 4, 2024
- 5 min read
Why Charles Bukowski is the Writer you MUST Know
“It’s nice to die of alcoholism; it’s very glorious. But if you write dull sh*t, it doesn’t matter what you die from.” — Charles Bukowski
Bukowski came across in television interviews as a carefree poet-drunk who was done with life before life was done with him. He was the image of the quintessential writer — plowing through plumes of smoke and the haze of alcohol to form sentences that led to paragraphs that eventually took form in hundreds of pieces of work. In fact, the German-American poet, novelist and writer not only created thousands of pieces of work (hundreds published) but could be found buried in the works of everyone from the Red Hot Chili Peppers to The Arctic Monkeys and Modest Mouse today.
If you don’t know Bukowsi, you may know him for a reading of two well-known poems, found here:
This quintessential piece of genius was just the start of my understanding this long-since-dead creator. As I explored more, I found more. Here’s what stayed with me:
From Physical Pain, Writing meant Freedom
As the son of immigrant parents who moved to Maryland, USA shortly after WWI, Bukowski was subjected to taunting and abuse both in public and private. In the schoolyard, he would be taunted for his German clothing and accent. At home, he would be subjected to a physically and mentally abusive father, who was frequently out of work. He noted that his father beat him several times a week with a razor strap, which taught him about pain, in particular, undeserved pain. That pain led to a depression that fuelled his rage — all of which he credited with giving voice to his earlier writings.
He Started Early
His earliest work, Aftermath of a Lengthy Rejection Slip, was published in 1944 when he was just 24; in a time when submissions had to be made in writing and via post (unlike this one typed and sent from the same machine!) He was published two years after that again.
He Gave Up Early too
Unable to fully land a foothold in the literary world, he became a ‘ten-year drunk’. His lost years included travel across the US and working at dozens of jobs from dishwasher to truck driver and loader, mail carrier, guard, gas station attendant, parking lot attendant and elevator operator. If you lived in New York City in the 1940’s you would have passed him hanging posters in the subways too. His stint in that aspect of his life ended with him almost dying of a bleeding ulcer. In his pain, once again, he started writing, but this time — poetry.
He Tried Various Forms of Creativity
He had better luck with poetry. Several of these were featured and published during the 1960s and his first stand-alone publications emerged outside of literary magazines. He was finally achieving critical mass as a writer in a space that he had not thought to try before.
He was Imperfect, Saving Perfection for the Pen
He married, divorced and continued drinking. When the first real object of his romantic affection Jane Cooney Baker, with whom he fell in love with on returning to work at the Post Office, passed away, he channeled that pain into the pages of his work. He dallied in one night stands after alcohol-fuelled binges, but whatever the salve took out of his soul, he applied it to the pages he wrote the next day. He applied perfection to his craft — keeping his pieces to his chest before publishing and therefore seeking to get it right the first time.
He was Honest
His authenticity in work is best exemplified by his fearlessness. He would emerge in a column he wrote for Los Angeles’ Open City underground newspaper titled Notes of a Dirty Old Man. In interviews given in his later years he was honest to a fault and real before The Real. He never minced words or refrained from sharing an opinion, even if it were an unpopular one. He titled and contributed to work ranging from Poems Written Before Jumping Out of an 8 story Window to Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions, and General Tales of Ordinary Madness, which for the latter published in 1972, was saying something.
He was Passionate
“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.”
One month after leaving his job at the Post Office, where he worked for ten years, he published his first novel named after his employers (Post Office,1971). He bit the bullet and dared greatly. He had no room for cynicism or critics, believing it to be ‘sour grapes’ and a ‘weakness.’ He leveraged pain into passion. Most of all,
He Created, Relentlessly.
At no point was Bukowski not creating, whether by writing or by living his life to his fullest. Even in the darker aspects of his life he took the helm and commandeered a life worth living. By the time of his death in 1994, he had completed six novels, ten non-fiction books and contributed to thirteen short story collections, thirty eight poetry collections, over forty recordings, and several screenplays and films. He was as prolific as he was profane.
Don’t Try
His gravestone carries that line above etched into it.
“Don’t Try.”
Of creating work and writing, he has a complete different point of view to many today:
“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.”
DO
This isn’t to say one sits around catching Netflix paralysis and sipping on lattes in today’s world. No. Bukowski wrote, a lot. But he would write and write until the inspiration came to him, until the bug came down off the wall and he either smacked it or made a new best friend out of it. If that didn’t work, he went out and lived, vicariously as it were, seeking inspiration where it exists in the real world, with real people. That’s where the stories that need to be told are — in the trenches and trials of mortal existence. The point is, not to frustrate oneself seeking inspiration, but to get out there, and to not simply try, but to actively do. And to be.
If you want to hear it from the man himself, here you go:
This article was originally published by The Writing Cooperative on Medium.
Comments