Charles Buckowski. Dec 7

Charles Bukowski was born in Andernach, Germany in 1920. His father was an American serviceman and his mother a native German. At the age of three his family moved to Los Angeles where he spent a good period of his life. Bukowski is a well know contemporary poet who has published more than forty-five volumes of poetry and prose. He died at the age of seventy-three. Charles Bukowski sometimes confuses me. From reading his poetry I can see man with terrible problems. He is often referred to as a womanized. This is evident within his poetry in many instances. Although Bukowski seems to have disdain for women there are occasions when the lighter loving side of his character is revealed. Bukowski seems to navigate from one end of the spectrum to the next within his poetry as he worked through is life, his numerous odd jobs, and alcoholism. His thoughts move from love, contempt for love, pain and sadness, happiness and contentment. It is refreshing when we see the happier side of Charles, but that is not always the case. Many of his poems are depressing and sometimes vulgar. In War All the Time he spends too much time at the racetrack. Maybe the racetrack was a big part of his life when writing this volume, but the amount of poems within it is too many. The structure of his poems is also uncomfortable. He has a wide variety of styles, but there are a lot of poems that have one to three word lines. This makes the poem seem to move along very quickly through a lot of white space. One of Bukowski’s sadder poems entitled the condition is structured this way. The main theme so this poem is pain. He begins the poem with the lines “all up and down the avenues / the people are in pain; / they sleep in pain, they awaken / in pain.” Not only are people in pain though, everything else is, the bridges, even the flowers. Bukowski says “there is no release,” because pain is everywhere. Because there is this pain he says “don’t ask why there are / drunks / drug addicts / suicides.” He then goes on to say that the reason there is pain is because “the music is bad / and the love / and the script: / this place now / as I type this / or as you read this: / your place now.” Reading Bukowski when feelings of confusion and melancholy maybe isn’t the best idea. Or maybe reading the sad Charles will make you realize that there is pain everywhere around you. Maybe I need to stop asking questions and realize there is nothing I can do about it. But why should I say that, if the mind is willing then change can happen on the outside as well as within. I want to find a hopeful poem of Bukowski’s right now, but there are few riddled within the this mess of alcohol, cigarettes, gambling, and loveless sex that is War All the Time.