Tempête pour les morts et les vivants (LITT GENERALE)

by Charles Bukowski, Romain Monnery (Translator)

j’ai 90 mille dollars
à la banque
50 balais
125 kilos sur la balance
jamais réveillé au son d’une alarme
et suis plus proche de Dieu
que ne l’est le
moineau.

Une anthologie de poèmes inédits parus dans d’obscurs magazines, conservés dans des bibliothèques et collections privées.
Profonde, rythmée, transgressive, hilarante, vernaculaire, la poésie de Bukowski est à l’image de son auteur : aux antipodes de la littérature académique.

Genres: Poetry, Classics, Nonfiction, American

280 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 27, 2014

About the author

Henry Charles Bukowski (born as Heinrich Karl Bukowski) was a German-born American poet, novelist and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural and economic ambience of his home city of Los Angeles.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

Charles Bukowski was the only child of an American soldier and a German mother. At the age of three, he came with his family to the United States and grew up in Los Angeles. He attended Los Angeles City College from 1939 to 1941, then left school and moved to New York City to become a writer. His lack of publishing success at this time caused him to give up writing in 1946 and spurred a ten-year stint of heavy drinking. After he developed a bleeding ulcer, he decided to take up writing again. He worked a wide range of jobs to support his writing, including dishwasher, truck driver and loader, mail carrier, guard, gas station attendant, stock boy, warehouse worker, shipping clerk, post office clerk, parking lot attendant, Red Cross orderly, and elevator operator. He also worked in a dog biscuit factory, a slaughterhouse, a cake and cookie factory, and he hung posters in New York City subways.

Bukowski published his first story when he was twenty-four and began writing poetry at the age of thirty-five. His first book of poetry was published in 1959; he went on to publish more than forty-five books of poetry and prose, including Pulp (1994), Screams from the Balcony (1993), and The Last Night of the Earth Poems (1992).

He died of leukemia in San Pedro on March 9, 1994.

Reviews

[Peycho Kanev · Rating 4 out of 5]

2 immortal poems

about 2 immortal poems a night
are about all I’ll allow myself
to write.
it’s fair—there isn’t much
competition.
besides, it’s more enjoyable
getting drunk
than lasting
forever.
that’s why more people
buy liquor than
Shakespeare . . .
who wouldn’t rather learn to
escape through the neck of a
bottle
or a neatly-rolled
Zig-Zag
than a book?
2 immortal poems a night are
enough . . .
when I hear those high heels
clicking up my doorway
steps . . .
I know that life is not made of paper
and immortality
but what we are
now; and as
her body, her eyes, her soul
enter the
room
the typewriter sits like a spoiled and
wasted, most well-fed
dog . . .
we embrace
within the tiny flash
of our
lives
as the typewriter
yowls
silently.

Fact

I have 90 thousand dollars
in the bank
am 50 years old
weigh 280 pounds
never awaken to an alarm clock
and am closer to God
than the
sparrow.


b

the wisdom of the
bumblebee crawling
the handle of the
water pitcher is
enormous as the
sun comes through
the kitchen win-
dow I think again
of the murder of
Caesar and down in
the sink are three
dirty water glasses.
the doorbell rings
and I stand deter-
mined not to answ-
er.

congrats, Chinaski

as I near 70
I get letters, cards, little gifts
from strange people.
congratulations, they tell
me,
congratulations.
I know what they mean:
the way I have lived
I should have been dead in half
that time.
I have piled myself with a mass of
grand abuse, been
careless toward myself
almost to the point of
madness,
I am still here
leaning toward this machine
in this smoke-filled room,
this large blue trashcan to my
left
full of empty
containers.
the doctors have no answers
and the gods are
silent.
congratulations, death,
on your patience.
I have helped you all that
I can.
now one more poem
and a walk out on the balcony,
such a fine night there.
I am dressed in shorts and stockings,
gently scratch my old
belly,
look out there
look off there
where dark meets dark
it’s been one hell of a crazy
ball game.

[Scott Semegran · Rating 4 out of 5]

Welcome back, Hank.
Nice to see you again, Buk.
They dug through your bones
Found poems, some
Uncollected
Others,
Unpublished.
Propped them up along with
Your doodles, which
To be honest…
Aren't that great but
I still like you, Buk.
You still got the chops, man.
The magic is still there
In some of these poems.
Some still sparkle, like jewels
In the morning sunlight
After a night of debauchery
And inebriated romance.
Others,
Well... let's just say
Reading this collection
Of your poems
Is like looking at Polaroid photos
Of anyone's life.
They show--scattershot,
How the work can be inconsistent
Over a long period of time.
Though not as glorious as
Your other collections,
Like
The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills
Or
Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame
It was still nice to hear your voice
Again.
Like a fog horn
Blowing in the night.
Your glorious literary voice is still
M O N U M E N T A L!
I loved seeing the
Photocopies of poems
Letters on the page like
Bullet holes through a paper target.
Nice shot, man!
You were a sharpshooter, Buk.
Don't worry. I got your back. But,
Please, if you could,
Send a memo. Shoot a fax.
To whoever is in charge of
Your legacy.
There is nothing left to prove.
I still like you, Buk.
You were a sharpshooter, man.
Got any beer?
No?!
Sorry to hear that.

[Steven Godin · Rating 3 out of 5]

if we can't make literature out of our
agony

what are we going to do with
it?

beg in the streets?

I like my minor comforts
just like any other
son of a
bitch.

[Zelia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Takes a certain person to enjoy… Bukowski is incredibly vulgar but in the type of honest way that at least he RECOGNIZES how gross he is. Actually loved a lot of these

[Casey Kiser · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me many times of re-reading this to like it. I think expectations were too high. But now I like this collection very much. Lots of gems that I didn't care for upon first read. My fav poem is 'Henry Miller and Burroughs'. If you are a huge Bukowski fan and you don't like this book, I urge you to pick it up again here and there, read it in different moods, different night, it will grow on you.

Some great lines from 'Congrats, Chinaski':

I have piled myself with a mass of
grand abuse, been
carless toward myself
almost to the point of
madness,
I am still here
leaning toward this machine
in this smoke-filled room,
this large blue trashcan to my
left
full of empty
containers.

the doctors have no answers
and the gods are silent.

congratulations, death,
on your patience.
I have helped you all that
I can.

[M. D. Hudson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like Jimi Hendrix albums, books by Charles Bukowski are issued at a frantic, posthumous rate, presumably by his estate. In this particular case, the production values are low (I've heard this about a lot of the Hendrix albums too). There is no introduction, only a semi-literate back cover blurb that explains the why bother aspect of this collection ("...Many of his poems remain little known, material that appeared in small magazines but was never collected, and a large number of them have yet to be published. In Storm for the Living and the Dead, Abel Debritto has curated the very finest of this material - poems from obscure, hard-to-find magazines, as well as from libraries and private collections all over the country - most of which will be new to Bukowski's readers and some of which has never been seen before..."). There is no table of contents and the same poem is printed on pages 5 and 8 - but to be fair, my copy is an uncorrected proof, so perhaps this got cleaned up. The "sources" page is pretty detailed, however.

Well, that being said, I found the book hard to put down - Bukowski is very readable, even in verse. My problem was that I wasn't really reading these as poems so much as Bukowski autobiographical anecdotes and opinion pieces in prose - as such they are at times very entertaining. The reason I read poetry at all (and so very, very enjoy it) is for those moments when, as Emily Dickinson said, they top of your head gets taken off. Bukowski can't pull that off - these poems are slack, discursive, full of rough prose pleasures, but not once did one of these rise to the occasion. There were lines here and there that gave me a little poetry-frisson. Here is an example of Bukowski's slovenly life rendered in chopped-up slovenly verse:

"...a very nifty place
with a couple of beds, a waxed
kitchen floor, and a tv walking around
like a tiger, and I dumped the steaks,
the whiskey and the beer on the table,
and later we ate, she made a good salad,
and we had some drinks and watched the
tiger walking and then I killed the thing..."

("the bumblebee" p. 16)

But I really liked the tv tiger - it surprised me in a way Bukowski rarely does in this collection. So the virtues I find here are not exactly poetic ones.


***

Charles Bukowski is resentful, and he is not afraid (or ashamed) to show his resentment. He is almost as revealing when it come to self-pity. This may be my favorite thing about him. Resentment and self-pity are unattractive aspects of character and therefore they are rarely revealed; sadness & grief, sure, self-pity, nope. I'm no psychologist - but then neither are most psychologists - but one of the reasons I turn to literature is to get a handle on life, including my slippery, deceiving self. With Bukowski, I find moments of clarification, but rarely any revelations. His childhood (and therefore adulthood) was botched by lousy parents. He escaped into alcohol, while trying with all the naivety of the young, to "break into" literature - trying the way they tried in the 1940s, with a battered collection of Hemingway and rejection slips from the New Yorker and The Saturday Evening Post. Poverty turned into squalor and instead of going straight, Bukowski reveled in the squalor and somehow, against the odds, prevailed. Squalor, let me tell you right now, almost always wins.

Some of the poems in this collection are early - pre-fame, I mean - and some of them are later, post-fame "Buk." The resentment never falters, even as circumstances improve.

Bukowski is also honest, more than most. This bit surprised the hell out of me:

"...but once I thought I'd find all great men on
skid row,
I once thought I'd find great men down there
strong men who had discarded society,
instead I found men who society had fiddled
away.

they were dull
inept and
still
ambitious.

I found the bosses more
interesting and more alive than the
slaves.

and that was hardly romantic. one would like things
romantic."

("55 beds in the same direction" p. 102)

Bukowski never gives in to the "Barfly" image - at least not entirely. He rarely romanticizes squalor ("that was hardly romantic"), and when he does it is never very convincing. He is perhaps the one of the most honest poets of the 20th century, right up there with Plath and Larkin. No consoling gusts of poetic afflatus, no little epiphanies or "moments of grace" or at-one-with-nature incidents. Which is why I kept reading. Bukowski was trapped, he knew he was trapped, and everyone around him was trapped too - although they wouldn't admit it.

The nature of Bukowski's trap is interesting. Usually, the hard-drinking, skidrow thing does not lead to Black Sparrow Press and professors wanting to interview you. This is because at heart, Bukowski was, I think, an earnest, hardworking fellow who did not want to become merely a deadbeat, a flophouse casualty, a barfly. Perhaps not from any overt bourgeois desire for respectability so much as he found the barfly and 55 beds in the same direction to be so crushingly boring. Unfortunately, he found no refuge with the professors and the professionals either, the bullshit factor and career considerations being too much for him to handle. I sympathize with this No Man's Land aspect of the literary "career" very much. Unfortunately, Bukowski's cultural criticism is pretty much what you'd expect from the 1960s California fringe:

"burning in water, drowning in flame"

carbon copy people
choosing clothes and shes and objects
carbon copy people
walking in and out of buildings,
seeing the same sun
the same moon,
reading the same paper
looking at the same programs
having the same ideas,
sleeping at the same time..." (p. 85)

This just goes on and on, a carbon copy Beat poem, pretty much. And yet the poem meanders on to speculation of the afterlife and I felt that little poem-y frisson:

"death? is there death? perhaps the gate swings open
and we are welcomed by roasted and tortured angels
where we are finally gypped into an insufficient Eternity,
a gag worse than Life...
wouldn't that be shit?
to get away from men like gearshifts and women like
horsemeat, only to
unfold into worse? o,
think then of the angered suicides
the dead heroes of dead wars...
the run-over children,
the saints burnt at stake --
all of them short-changed rolled, doped..."

(p. 87)

A sort of Ginsbergian stateliness, perhaps? I liked the "men like gearshifts" even as I sort of cringe at "angered suicides" which only glancingly makes much sense.


***

Bukowski was a champion of the small magazine scene, an admirable loyalty to that fringe culture that long supported him in his early decades. The problem with the small lit mags is that often - not always - but often - they are really bad. The desire to be "fringe" (or I guess you'd say "alternative" these days) overrides literary considerations. Another way of saying they publish a lot of terrible stories and poems (a really good used book store will have a lit mag section - seek out the really, really skinny ones - especially ones with staples, mimeographed with no evidence of a real printer - of course nowadays you can get on the Internet and find this same aesthetic in abundance). This terribleness - especially in the 'sixties, was often a kind of badge of honor, the slipshod being conflated with the immediate and the honest. Bukowski was certainly honest, but he was also certainly slipshod. An interesting poem in this collection "I been working on the railroad..." is 8 pages loose verse and a bad drawing detailing Bukowski's time in New Orleans with a small publisher (the Great Editor/ Great Publisher) and his wife. Essentially they'd feed him and get him drunk so long as he cranked out, on a daily basis, a bunch of poems and stuff ("GO AWAY AND DON'T COME BACK UNTIL YOU HAVE / SOME POEMS!" (P. 164). This method of production does not lend itself to anything such as editing or revision and, consequently, anything I'd imagine to be much good. Like many of the poems in this collection, "I been working..." is enjoyable to read, but, like many of the poems in this collection, it would've been just as good, or better, in prose.

The Writing Process: In an artless, rather charming way, Bukowski often writes about the writing process - how he writes and also, who you should write. Here is the beginning of "rip it":

"when a poem doesn't work, forget it, don't hound it, don't
fondle it and molest it, don't make it join the A. A. or
become a Born Again
Christian.

when a poem doesn't work, just pull the sheet out of the
machine, rip it, toss it in the basket -- that feels
good.

listen, you write because it's the last machine gun
on the last hill.

you write because you're a bird sitting on a wire, then
suddenly your wings flap and your little dumb ass is
up in the air...

(p. 207)


I rather like that "last machine gun" part, but birds on a wire isn't doing it for me and the whole thing is so slack, so typed that I wondered what the difference between a Bukowski poem that "doesn't work" and one that does. There is a raw vs. cooked argument here, and I admit to being somewhat more cooked than raw. But quality can manifest itself in the raw - I think of Robert Creeley at his best, or Frank O'Hara (and, as much as I hate to admit it, Ginsburg, on rare occasions). Bukowski, except for isolated, fleeting moments, never reaches that level. For all his going on and on about the writing process, I got the feeling he lacked respect both for that process and perhaps even for himself. This gives his slack verse a kind of pathos, as if "rip it" was an effort to buck himself up and provide some cover - see, I do have standards, although I'm cranking this stuff out by the gross ton.

Furthermore, I find Bukowski's references to his writing idols to be annoying - he is one of those guys who refers to "Hem" and "Gertie" - that's Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein. Bukowski fights resentment, even as he admires, which is fine, but the familiarity seems amateur to me, somewhat childish and most certainly unearned.

And yet Bukowski on the writing process - and on the contemporary literary scene, for all its crudity, is far more interesting to me than, say, Joyce Carol Oates gassing on about the same topic (I am working through a collection of her critical "pieces" now - I used quotations marks on "pieces" because she puts things in quotation marks in a random process known only to Joyce Carol Oates and perhaps God).


"fat upon the land"

all these,
fat upon the land
teaching English at the universities
and writing
legless
headless
bellybuttonless
poetry

knowing where to apply for the
grants and
getting the grants and
more grants
and writing more
handless
hairless
eyeless
poetry

all these,
fat upon the land
have found a hiding place
and have even achieved wives to
attach to their ninny
souls
these,
take paid trips
to the islands
to Europe
Paris
anywhere
in order
it is said
to gather
material
(Mexico, they simply run to on their
own)

while the jails are overcrowded with the
mislaid innocent
while the hunkies go down
in the mines
while the idiot sons of the poor
are fired from jobs
these
wouldn't dirty their hands and
souls on

these,
fat upon the land
join at the universities
read their poems to
each other
read their poems to
their students

these,
pretend wisdom and
immortality...

(p. 72-76)

This goes on for a couple more pages - and it was pretty tough typing. A lot of Bukowski poems straggle along like this, random line and stanza breaks, slack, not-quite-right diction (why "fat upon the land"? A sort of at-hand-not-quite-a-cliché, I suspect). But yeah, I pretty much agree with his take on university poets, but that stanza on jails and "hunkies" seems off-topic - and hypocritical. Bukowski is hardly the Working Man's Poet - he having spent much of his life dodging work (I dimly recall reading his autobiography Ham on Rye 30 years ago in regards to this). Bukowski'd no more go down a coal mine with the Hunkies than would the Poet Laureate of New Jersey, whoever he or she may be these days.

But let me hasten to note that "fat upon the land" was published in 1971 - and Bukowski's complaints about American poetry professors is pretty much as fresh and relevant as it was nearly 50 years ago. The only thing stopping this juggernaut of tenured mediocrity and collegial insider trading is the current on-going disintegration of the whole college liberal arts ideal, killed by irrelevancy and high prices and political correctness and boredom.

And yet the professors came around, eventually, and Bukowski found himself in what I'd imagine to be a tough spot. I doubt his book sales were enough income, but paid readings at universities must've come along and I'd guess he took them (I am not familiar with his full biography, so I am guessing here). There is a YouTube video of Bukowski talking to some German students towards the end of his life and he tries, heroically, to spark some life into these "Sprokets" sophisticates, who mostly seem to want to see the Elderly American Beatnik Monkey throw some of his dung around the stage.

Bukowski's ongoing cultural crisis involved women as well. His writings about women would be verboten nowadays - it is explicit and often very unsympathetic, to say the least. In this collection there is one called "the ladies of the afternoon" which is about young college women wanting to chat him up. Bukowski lusts after them, explicitly ("their breasts are vast and / firm / and their asses are sculptured by / sex-fiends; / ...they have minds and bodies..." p. 121). That they "look better than the old girls / did..." is also noted. But these ladies of the afternoon are not interested in a quickie with Bukie - and he knows it. Fear of the "emancipated woman" - he admits it, and autopsied it: "but this is an inflationary age / and with them / you must pay first, during and / and afterwards... (p. 122)" Objectionable observations are not necessarily untrue, although Bukowski can be rather short-sighted. His appeal came about as his literary efforts became noticed. My guess is that pre-emancipation college women of the 1950s would have been just as "inflationary" and just as disinclined for a tumble with Bukowski. In other words, Bukowski is comparing two different socio-economic "types" of women - the "old girls" he knew were hanging out in bars, alcoholics, some of them prostitutes - these women still existed in the '70s. The Vassar "girls" of 1958 were not interested in fornicating, or spending time with, an alcoholic postal clerk. But had his fame as a writer come by 1958, he might've faced the same situation with the young women of the Sylvia Plath generation coming round to visit, not necessarily to sleep with him, but interested, checking him out because of his literary accomplishments. Bukowski always wants to be loved for himself - who doesn't?

***

Sometimes Bukowski attempts something "poetic." By this I mean his usual first person narrative or opinion piece rendered in regular ol' English is substituted for something dense and allusive.

T.H.I.A.L.H.

in dwarf-like piety the guns mount toward home,
and the coffee cans desire 18th-century verse;
the tabloid is grim with comic strips and
baseball box scores --
as the Egyptians spit on dogs and the geek
swallows lightbulbs at The Metropolitan Museum of the
Arts; it's haversack and ballyhoo
the punctuation is regular
the flax is battleship sick
and Captain Claypool vomits midnights out
cleanly;
the destination is the shoebox..."

(p. 55)

No, I don't know what the title means, or any of the rest of it. The excerpt is about a third of that particular piece - maybe I could figure it out, but again, I got weary typing. These, which crop up in this collection from time to time, I found to be unreadable. My guess is somebody turned Bukowski on to the Beats and he felt a competitive need to show he can do that crap too. Or blame it on Bob Dylan - there's a poem in this collection about some kids playing Dylan next door to his apartment day and night. Maybe here we have Bukowski channeling "Desolation Row." A lot of people did that in '65 or thereabouts, I'd imagine. No fun, man.

Bukowski's drawings are salted throughout this collection. They are bad. It is very difficult to imitate - which Bukowski is clearly doing - James Thurber's style. Bukowski fails at this.

***

My favorites are the autobiographical pieces, the comically vulgar "I thought I was going to get some" and the bragging yet self-loathing "a poem to myself" "well, now that Ezra has died..."warts" "my new parents" "a corny poem" etc. etc. These are the poems that kept me reading, and compared to the typical American poetry collection a far more enjoyable experience - see my reviews of Pinsky and Haas for the dreadful poetic diction that passes for American Establishment Verse, late 20th Century style. Bukowski's things here might not be poems, but they are actually written by a human being trying to convey actual human being emotions and situations, frustrations and resentments, something harder to find than you might think. And, like I said at the beginning of this review, I couldn't put it down. A compliment for sure.

[Mathieu · Rating 1 out of 5]

À part quelques passages et une certaine manière assez mobile d’écrire des poèmes qui fonctionnent, y’a concrètement pas grand chose qui va. Homme qui a beaucoup à dire sur les femmes et les homosexuel.les et c’est #nul #cata #pitié

Il écrit des choses abjectes sous couvert d’humour et de provocation et de transgressivité (selon la critique) et hop on devrait s’en satisfaire… #bof

[k · Rating 4 out of 5]

beautiful

[Michael Forester · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yet another astonishing collection from the king of abrasion.

Charles Bukowski spares no one - especially himself - in his trademark honesty. Reading Bukowski feels like rubbing my ego with 40 grit sandpaper. Yet his volumes of poetry - and this is no exception - are compulsive page turners. He remains the only poet whose books I read cover to cover, in order, and sometimes at a single sitting. Brilliant writing. Recommended without reservation.

[adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

“𝕎𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕞𝕒𝕥𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕤 𝕞𝕠𝕤𝕥 𝕚𝕤 𝕨𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕙𝕒𝕡𝕡𝕖𝕟𝕤 𝕥𝕠 𝕤𝕠𝕞𝕖𝕓𝕠𝕕𝕪 𝕖𝕝𝕤𝕖, 𝕟𝕠𝕥 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣𝕤𝕖𝕝𝕗. ℍ𝕠𝕨 𝕠𝕕𝕕 𝕚𝕥 𝕨𝕠𝕦𝕝𝕕 𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕖 𝕕𝕠𝕨𝕟 𝕥𝕠 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕤. 𝔸𝕝𝕡𝕚𝕟𝕖 𝕤𝕡𝕣𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕨𝕒𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝕔𝕠𝕦𝕝𝕕𝕟’𝕥 𝕤𝕒𝕪 𝕚𝕥 𝕓𝕖𝕥𝕥𝕖𝕣. 𝕆𝕣 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕥𝕖𝕟 𝕔𝕠𝕦𝕟𝕥. 𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕦𝕟𝕖𝕩𝕡𝕖𝕔𝕥𝕖𝕕 𝕞𝕒𝕘𝕚𝕔 𝕠𝕗 𝕒 𝕡𝕠𝕚𝕟𝕥, 𝕨𝕖𝕝𝕝 𝕞𝕒𝕕𝕖, 𝕔𝕒𝕟 𝕘𝕖𝕥 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕗𝕣𝕠𝕞 𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖 𝕥𝕠 𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖, 𝕗𝕣𝕠𝕞 𝕙𝕖𝕝𝕝 𝕥𝕠 𝕙𝕖𝕝𝕝.
𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕥’𝕤 𝕨𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕚𝕥’𝕤 𝕒𝕝𝕝 𝕒𝕓𝕠𝕦𝕥, 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕣𝕖 𝕠𝕟
𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕤𝕚𝕕𝕖 𝕠𝕗 𝕥𝕙𝕖
𝕤𝕥𝕠𝕟𝕖.
𝕥𝕦𝕣𝕟 𝕝𝕖𝕗𝕥 𝕒𝕥 𝕄𝕠𝕤𝕔𝕠𝕨
𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕖 𝕕𝕠𝕨𝕟
𝕗𝕣𝕠𝕞 𝔻𝕖𝕟𝕧𝕖𝕣.

𝕕𝕣𝕚𝕟𝕜.





𝓈𝑜𝓃𝑔 𝒻𝑜𝓇 𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓈 𝓈𝑜𝒻𝓉𝓁𝓎-𝓈𝓌𝑒𝑒𝓅𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓈𝑜𝓇𝓇𝑜𝓌 . . .


𝑜𝓃𝑒 𝓂𝓊𝓈𝓉 𝒶𝓇𝒾𝓈𝑒
𝒶𝒷𝑜𝓋𝑒 𝒶𝓁𝓁 𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓈 𝓈𝒽𝒾𝓉.
𝓀𝑒𝑒𝓅 𝑔𝓇𝑜𝓌𝒾𝓃𝑔 . . .
𝒹𝑒𝓈𝓉𝒾𝓃𝓎 𝒾𝓈 𝑜𝓃𝓁𝓎 𝒶 𝓌𝒽𝑜𝓇𝑒 𝒾𝒻 𝓌𝑒 𝓂𝒶𝓀𝑒 𝒽𝑒𝓇
𝓈𝑜.
𝓁𝑒𝓉’𝓈 𝓁𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉 𝓁𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉𝓈
𝓁𝑒𝓉’𝓈 𝓈𝓊𝒻𝒻𝑒𝓇 𝒾𝓃 𝑔𝓇𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝓈𝓉𝓎𝓁𝑒—
𝓉𝑜𝑜𝓉𝒽𝓅𝒾𝒸𝓀 𝒾𝓃 𝓂𝑜𝓊𝓉𝒽, 𝑔𝓇𝒾𝓃𝓃𝒾𝓃𝑔.
𝓌𝑒 𝒸𝒶𝓃 𝒹𝑜 𝒾𝓉.
𝓌𝑒 𝓌𝑒𝓇𝑒 𝒷𝑜𝓇𝓃 𝓈𝓉𝓇𝑜𝓃𝑔 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝓌𝑒 𝓌𝒾𝓁𝓁 𝒹𝒾𝑒
𝓈𝓉𝓇𝑜𝓃𝑔.
𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓂𝒶𝓃𝓃𝑒𝓇 𝑜𝒻 𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝓁𝒾𝓋𝒾𝓃𝑔
𝓁𝒾𝓀𝑒 𝑜𝒸𝑒𝒶𝓃 𝓁𝒾𝓃𝑒𝓇𝓈 𝒾𝓃 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒻𝑜𝑔 . . .
𝓉𝒽𝑜𝓇𝓃𝓈 𝑜𝓃 𝓇𝑜𝓈𝑒𝓈 . . .
𝒷𝓁𝒶𝓈é 𝒷𝑜𝓎𝓈 𝓉𝓇𝑜𝓉𝓉𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓅𝒶𝓇𝓀𝓈 𝒾𝓃 𝓈𝓌𝒾𝓂 𝓈𝓊𝒾𝓉𝓈 . . .
𝒾𝓉 𝒽𝒶𝓈 𝒷𝑒𝑒𝓃 𝓋𝑒𝓇𝓎
𝑔𝑜𝑜𝒹.
𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝒷𝑜𝓃𝑒𝓈
𝓁𝒾𝓀𝑒 𝓈𝓉𝑒𝓂𝓈 𝒾𝓃𝓉𝑜 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓈𝓀𝓎
𝓌𝒾𝓁𝓁 𝒻𝑜𝓇𝑒𝓋𝑒𝓇 𝒸𝓇𝓎
𝓋𝒾𝒸𝓉𝑜𝓇𝓎.”

[Yu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of Bukowski's poems might seem destructive, vulgar or full of profanity. But I only quote a part of his poem here from "quit before the sun", it echoes --

we used to destroy, now we note
what remains:
us, them, we and the
machinery.
neatly bound like the snail and
the leaf.
what god awful gaff these rules
are!
who set this up?

... ...

what matters most is what happens to
somebody else, not
yourself.

... ...

the unexpected magic of a point
well made
can get you from fire to fire,
from hell to hell.

... ...

Right now in this crazy world, I do wish I can get a poem from you, Chinaski!

[Lindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think you either like Bukowski or you don’t. He’s vulgar and I’m sure a lot of people find him offensive. I enjoy his honesty and humour. He knows he a piece of shit and I think that’s what makes his writing good.

I’m not a huge poetry fan, so reading an entire book was a little much, things start to get repetitive at times. There were a few really good ones in here, also some really funny ones, overall I enjoyed it.

[Kurt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Storm For The Living And The Dead, the most recent collection of his unpublished poems, is pure Bukowski – if you can forgive the oxymoron.

[Ivy Espinosa · Rating 5 out of 5]

“even when he speaks of suicide Charles Bukowski smiles and sometimes laughs”

[Issabela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dear Bukowski:
You’re one of the sickest mfs that has ever existed, you disgust me.
You’re also one of the greatest writers in history.

[Django Laić · Rating 3 out of 5]

Charles Bukowski ‘Oluja za žive i mrtve’ – stihovi s brane koja popušta

Unatoč povremenim promašajima koji s pravom nisu našli mjesto u golemom objavljenom repertoaru Bukowskog kao pjesnika, veći dio ovih pjesama ipak pokazuje snagu grube poezije koja je od njezinog autora stvorila legendu.

Stari pokvarenjak Charles Bukowski, trubadur iz prljavoga jarka i glasnogovornik podzemnog polusvijeta koji čine pijanci, kockari, kurve i književnici, danas je naširoko prihvaćen kao jedan od najistaknutijih američkih pjesnika druge polovice dvadesetog stoljeća, a može se pohvaliti i armijom fanatičnih obožavatelja kakva rijetko prati ljude od pera. Moram priznati da sam oduvijek osjećao određenu odbojnost prema tim tipovima, a uglavnom je uvijek bila riječ o muškarcima, kojima su usta bila puna starog Buka, a ako su i sami pisali, uvijek su ga pokušavali kanalizirati u svom izričaju u pravilu se više koncentrirajući na njegov prostački vokabular, izraženu grubu seksualnost i veličanje pijanstva, pritom zanemarujući njegov osjećaj za humor, autoironiju i genijalni talent za pronalaženje zrnaca neupitne ljepote koja bi još više blistala zbog činjenice da je izvađena iz najprljavijih zakutaka ljudske egzistencije.

Taj talent kod Bukowskog je uvijek bolje izbijao u poeziji nego u proznim djelima, a dokaze koji lako brane ovu tezu možemo pronaći primjerice u antologijskoj zbirci “Užici prokletih” koju je u prijevodu Damira Šodana prije deset godina objavio Profil. Desetljeće kasnije pred nama je još jedan veliki izbor Bukovih pjesama, a ovaj put su u pitanju posthumna zbirka neobjavljenih i neuvrštenih pjesama “Oluja za žive i mrtve” u izdanju V.B.Z.-a. Budući da su u pitanju stihovi koje je urednik Abel Debritto mukotrpnim radom prikupio iz gomila rukopisa ili rijetkim izdanjima potpuno opskurnih časopisa, u njima nalazimo Bukowskog u nefiltriranom izdanju, upravo onakvog kakvog ga najčešće i zamišljamo: oporog, nerijetko šokantnog, pijanog, neopranog i mnogo spremnijeg za popuštanju svojim neugodnijim instinktima nego inače. Dvosjekli je to mač: tračci ljepote na ovim stranicama su rjeđi, ali to su više upečatljivi kad se jednom pojave.

I ovu je zbirku preveo Šodan, bez sumnje jedan od najboljih domaćih prevoditelja anglofone poezije, ali “Oluja” neće ostati upamćena kao njegov najbolji rad. Velikim dijelom ta činjenica uvjetovana je specifičnim izričajem pjesnika koji je u čestim slučajevima doslovno neprevodiv: kako, primjerice, uopće na bilo kojem jeziku reći naslove poput “kuv stuff mox out”? No ovdje Šodan radi i neke neprisiljene greške u kojima promašuje smisao slenga ili zvuči pretjerano kvrgavo u odnosu na izvornik, što se može primijetiti u rijetkim slučajevima gdje je u knjizi priložena i kopija originalnog teksta kao ilustracija uz prijevod. Unatoč takvim zastranjivanjima prijevod je u načelu dobar, čak i ako Šodan umije bolje.

Slično se može reći i za sadržaj, unatoč povremenim promašajima koji s pravom nisu našli mjesto u golemom objavljenom repertoaru Bukowskog kao pjesnika, veći dio ovih pjesama ipak pokazuje snagu grube poezije koja je od njezinog autora stvorila legendu. Ono što najviše upada u oči kad danas čitamo njegove stihove jest koliko se naglo svijet promijenio u četvrt stoljeća nakon njegovih posljednjih radova i smrti. Vremena su danas svakako pretjerano sanitizirana političkom korektnošću koja ne podnosi lako izravnost njegovog izričaja, pa su njegove misli ponekad suviše nelagodne za najnovije generacije čitatelja.

Može se raspravljati o tome vodi li taj svojevrsni oblik novog puritanizma nekom svijetu koji će u budućnosti biti ugodniji za život ili je u pitanju besmisleno moraliziranje koje će kad-tad proizvesti neku neopankersku kontrarevoluciju u svijesti narednih pokoljenja, ali u svakom slučaju bi zanemarivanje bučnog glasa kakav je bio onaj Bukowskog predstavljalo pogrešku moralizatora s društvenih mreža koji danas uvelike odlučuju o tome što je prihvatljivo, a što nije. Svijet je i dalje jednako prljav kao što je bio i kad je o njemu pisao Bukowski i ljudske su misli jednako prljave kao i one koje je on pretvarao u svoju vrstu poezije. Što više o tim činjenicama šutimo, govna se akumuliraju i stvaraju sve veći pritisak na brane koje im u svijesti postavljamo. A kad brana jednom pukne i nečist ispliva u javni prostor, “Oluja za žive i mrtve” činit će se blagom poput kamilice prema onome u čemu ćemo biti primorani zaplivati.

(V.B.Z., 272 str., meki uvez, 2021.)

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Classic Bukowski, but wish they would have thought the better of including the poem”Tough Luck” even though is (hopefully) made up and one of his probably intending to shock. Otherwise some great ones in here, including what they presume to be the last poem Bukowski ever wrote.

[Leonor Gouveia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bukowski is a very problematic man and I despise him as a person, but I do love the artist and of everything he has ever written, I enjoy his poetry the most. That being said, there's a reason why these poems are "uncollected and unpublished" and that's because they're not good.

[Sandra (folded.between.pages.of.books) · Rating 3 out of 5]

some of the poems i enjoyed,
others not so much

[Rose Anne Malagotnot · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did not finish this book. When you read the poems on this collection, you would understand why they weren’t published.

[Braydon Massoud · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recommended by Nanaimo librarian because their book selection is subpar

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Isabel Gaentzsch · Rating 2 out of 5]

*2.5

[Simon Sweetman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot of Buk-barrel scraping going on the last few years; time to introduce him to a new audience I guess...but this is pretty good, some nice stuff here. You can see why, in most cases, it was left out previously but there's some decent work here. And a few very good surprises.

[Raúl Campos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Varios poemas son la versión exprés de algunas partes de "Ham On Rye"; leer mientras se escucha a Casiopea, Iggy Pop, Gary Moore y Belafonte.

[Nate Jordon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hate to say it but, there appears to be only crumbs left in the cookie jar.

[Michelé · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 (changing back to 3)

This was my first experience with Bukowski. I appreciated the “ordinary man” tone of it. There’s no grandeur to the style or subject matter. Tbh, there were still a lott of poems I didn’t understand. I’m not sure I’ll seek out more Bukowski, but this was an educational experience and I noted the sort of “permission” it gave for more prose style poems.

[Cristina · Rating 1 out of 5]

[Burning in water, drowning in flame]
“If we can’t literature out of our agony, what are we going to do with it? Beg in the streets?”

[Steve Bal4 · Rating 3 out of 5]

After decades of (inexplicably) over-edited, posthumous releases of Charles Bukowski's leftover work I was very excited to learn of Storm for the Living and the Dead, a collection of unpublished and previously uncollected works --- left unmolested by a new editor, Abel DeBritto.

My initial reaction upon reading was that the poems presented had, indeed, been edited; there was something that felt inconsistent with the style I'd come to expect from Bukowski; these were more verbose, with longer lines and more punctuation --- I began to feel we'd been duped. What I came to realize was that this collection spans decades of submissions and completely unreleased (possibly never expected to be so) work: it plays out much more like a collection of B-sides, demos or rarities, and in that respect it works.

I really liked the insertion of actual copies of Bukowski's typed pages and letters at certain parts of the book, often with hand-scratched corrections and little doodles. The bibliography of all sources and dates at the end was also interesting. There is much good work here, and some that falls flat, but ultimately the charm, humour and pathos, and the unique subject matter that make Bukowski such a great writer, comes through enough to make this an enjoyable, worthwhile read.

⭐⭐⭐1/2

[Jonathan Tennis · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a MFA candidate in poetry, I figured my education would not be complete without checking out Bukowski. I am glad I did. Wow. While I don’t agree with his attitude towards a lot of his subjects, I like the way he writes. Really enjoyed it and will find other works by the author to read. There were a lot of poems I enjoyed but my faves were as follows: take me out to the ball game; like that; fuck; burning in water, drowning in flame; Warm Water Bubbles; a corny poem; head jobs; and the trivial lives of royalty never excited me either…; agnostic; it doesn’t always work; dear old dad; all my friends.