Sunday, October 10, 2010

Bukowski on the Inside

Amplify’d from huntingtonblogs.org

Bukowski on the Inside

by Susan Turner-Lowe on October 8, 2010

“She is a joy. I look at her and light goes all through me.”

Quick quiz. Who wrote it? William Carlos Williams? Wallace Stevens? Alice Walker? None of the above?

That’s right, none of the above. This was Charles Bukowski talking to fellow poet William Wantling about his daughter, Marina, born in 1964. He continues on, saying, “I am soft, man, soft, and I don’t mind a bit.” This from a man who spent a lifetime nurturing his tough side through loud, raw, expletive-laced poetry and prose, by hard drinking, fierce misogyny, and general rabble-rousing.

Huntington curator Sue Hodson says there is a tenderness under the hard shell that is exquisite and painful. “When you think about how he touched people’s lives, it’s incredibly powerful. He offered comfort, gave people hope and something to hang on to,” she said. “He said one of his happiest moments was when he got a letter from a jailbird in Australia who told him his book was the only one that got passed from cell to cell. He was struck by the difference he was making for people who were down on their luck, imprisoned, and troubled.”

The softer side of Bukowski plays out in “Love Poem to Marina,” published by Black Sparrow Press in 1973. A broadside of it, beautifully and simply rendered, will be included in the exhibition “Charles Bukowski: Poet on the Edge,” which opens tomorrow in the West Hall of the Library.

Here’s an excerpt:

“and I stretch on the grass and sand

And she rips dandelions up

And places them in my hair

While I doze in the sea breeze.

I awaken

Shake

Say, “what the hell?”

And flowers fall over my eyes and my nose

And over my

Lips.

I brush them away

and she sits above

giggling.”

Even Bukowski had that tender father-daughter thing going on. It wasn’t the only way he tapped into his soft side. He was a cat lover too, and wrote a lovely poem—the story of Bukowski himself—about how he nursed back to health a very unwell cat who appears one night at his door.

“he wouldn’t touch the water, I dipped my finger into it

and wet his mouth and I talked to him, I didn’t go any-

where, I put in a lot of bathroom time and talked to

him and gently touched him and he looked back at

me with those pale blue crossed eyes and as the days went

by he made his first move

dragging himself forward by his front legs

(the rear ones wouldn’t work)”

The title of the poem, “History of One Tough Motherf****r” (asterisks are mine), suggests something edgy, raw, and foul-mouthed is about to happen. But the opposite holds true. As the poem unfolds, it’s a love story—survival against the odds, and the tender partnership that serves as the underpinnings to it all. And, ultimately, it’s soft stuff, very soft stuff. Even if you don’t like cats.

“you know the rest: now he’s better than ever, cross-eyed

almost toothless, but the grace is back, and that look in

his eyes never left…

and now sometimes I’m interviewed, they want to hear about

life and literature and I get drunk and hold up my cross-eyed,

shot, runover de-tailed cat and I say, ‘look, look

at this!’”

“Charles Bukowski: Poet on the Edge” runs from Oct. 9, 2010, through Feb. 14, 2011.

By Susan Turner-Lowe, vice president for communications at The Huntington. Photos: Postcard showing Charles Bukowski at typewriter, 1988. Photo by Joan Levine Gannij, published by Island International Bookstore, Amsterdam. Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens (top); Charles Bukowski and his cat Manx, ca. 1985. Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens.

Tagged as:
Black Sparrow Press,
Poetry,
West Hall,
William Wantling

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