Drinking With Bukowski: Recollections of the Poet Laureate of Skid Row - Softcover

3.69

64 ratings by Goodreads

9781560252627: Drinking With Bukowski: Recollections of the Poet Laureate of Skid Row

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1560252626 ISBN 13: 9781560252627

Publisher: Thunder's Mouth Pr, 2000

The 20th century's greatest poet was a guy from L.A. called Hank, who talked straight, drank hard, faced truth, and exposed beauty and vulnerability like no other in his place and time. Drinking with Bukowski is a celebration of that utterly original voice featuring contributions from everyone from the women who loved him to the Hollywood cognoscenti who courted him, from writers who admired him and actors who tried to emulate him to the barflies, strippers, gangsters, poets, crazies, and dreamers who knew him: Raymond Carver, Wanda Coleman, Harold Norse, Michael C. Ford, and Paul Vangelisti pay homage and recount the Dionysian days of L.A. poetry; record producer Harvey Robert Kubernik and journalist Barry Miles remember capturing Buk on vinyl for the first time; novelist Steve Abee remembers the early days of L.A.'s underground newspapers - Open City and the L.A. Free Press - Bukowski's early stomping grounds.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly:

"Alcohol is probably one of the greatest things to arrive upon the earth alongside of me," Bukowski (1920-1994) once said in an interview. While not everyone would agree, few deny that Bukowski casts a long shadow, and the literary community is still processing the fact of his death. L.A. poet and journalist Weizmann has assembled a collection of reprints and never-before-published pieces in honor of "Buk," the postal worker-turned-"cult celeb" whose writing and personage hold unique appeal for artists and non-literati alike. The 35 different voices including famous folks such as Sean Penn, Karen Finley and Raymond Carver give a remarkably coherent, even, at times, redundant portrait of this abusive, alcoholic, egocentric, gifted and sometimes misunderstood literary bad boy. By turns amusing, tiresome, charming, repellant and moving, the collection seems an appropriate tribute to a writer who provokes similarly equivocal feelings. Bukowski might have appreciated, or at least respected, the frankness of many of the contributors. Included are poems by Bukowski's love interest (and mother of his only daughter) FrancEyE, Todd Moore and Raindog; Gerald Locklin's "How to Get Along with Charles Bukowski"; prose by drinking buddy Neeli Cherkovski and onetime girlfriend Linda King; and interviews by Penn and Jean-Fran?ois Duval. Most contributions are thankfully brief and, like their subject, direct. And yet, one can't help wondering if the consistently sympathetic evocations of Bukowski as a thorny individual who suffered deeply from childhood rejection by classmates because of his bad skin, while perhaps providing closure for fans and intimates, might clash with his proclivity for vulgarity and disrespect. (Mar. 1)
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist:

If this were a set of academic papers, it would be called a Festschrift. But you don't do a Festschrift for Charles Bukowski, roughneck bard of urban America's underbelly, whose poems, stories, and novels have wowed generations of declasse litterateurs. Instead, you gather stuff by Buk's friends and lovers, whether or not they are writers themselves. You wind up with a ragbag of excerpts from books about the man, short memoirs, interviews, poems that honor Buk's own manner while brilliantly aping it, and glimpses of forthcoming volumes, such as the one by Buk's widow and a roundup of letters between Buk and fellow poet Harold Norse. Because every contributor loved Bukowski, they try to reflect his enormous lumpen appeal. Particularly successful at it are Sean Penn's interview, self-effacingly shorn of the actor's words; Karen Finley's recollection of not having Buk's baby; and Joan Jobe Smith's "5 Poems" about living within driving distance of Buk. But the whole shebang, including the R. Crumb portrait on the cover, is way more entertaining--and far less stuffy--than any Festschrift. Ray Olson
Copyright � American Library Association. All rights reserved

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.