Around a year ago I had no idea really who Charles Bukowski was but now I do and I’m so thankful I do! I first got into Bukowski by watching a motivational video where a poem of his is read out, check it out below it’s pretty awesome….
Then when I returned home from Russia I wanted to know more about the man whose words had helped me, helped to push me almost ‘all the way’. Anyway I got back from Russia pretty depleted, got employed by the company my brother was working for and got on with life, then I received the Bukowski books around Christmas time of 2016.
I was pretty much stepping into unknown waters, all I had heard from other people was that Bukowski’s material is “a bit heavy”, “wooahh, be prepared”, “yeah he’s great, talks honestly” amongst many other comments. I first read ‘Locked in the Arms of a Crazy Life’ which was a biography on Bukowski. I would be foolish to say that this book didn’t affect me, I was going through a pretty shitty time in life over the period of Christmas till mid-February and I felt quite lonely.
https://giphy.com/gifs/charles-pic-q5OASr2b0Izhm
BUT I had someone who I could relate to even if it wasn’t an exact relation, I could feel compassion for Bukowski in many of his issues especially those in his childhood, many of the issues he faced are not similar to my own circumstances but I could almost feel his pain, his isolation and in a way I felt comfort. That’s the beauty of books though, the person who wrote it could be dead or it could have been written many years ago but yet it’s there, it’s their writing, their words!!
Anyways I got lost in Bukowski loop and those that may have seen my more personal side might have seen that I was maybe adopting some characteristics, maybe drinking too heavy, being grumpier and gloomier, heavily anti-social and also feeling like it was me against the world. Was it though? No, of course not. I was just maybe taking and accepting too much influence from Bukowski and repeating actions that I knew wasn’t me, or wasn’t me for what I knew I was.
Did I stop there with Bukowski? No!
I got to know the personal side of Bukowski but it didn’t showcase his poems or novels in full depth and yet I still haven’t fully delved into Bukowski but I did move onto the book ‘The Last Night of the Earth Poems’. This book is a collection of some of Bukowksi’s poems, and to be fair quite I few of them I found difficult understanding and relating to, however there were others that did and I jotted them all down.
Bukowski’s writing is beautiful in its structure, complexity as well as its simple tones at times. Bukowski puts across emotion in such a great blunt and truthful way in which if you're tired with superficial BS of ‘normal life’ it’s genuinely a breath of fresh air and well-worth reading, but I think it’s so important to understand Bukowski as it holds his work in higher regard because it’s writing with purpose.
I’m thinking of posting my favourite poems of Bukowski every so often, let me know if that’ll interest you… also share a writer, artist, musician etc. with me that has affected you or someone you think I should know of!
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