The galleys for The Pleasures of the Damned: Poems, 1951-1993 by Charles Bukowski came in this week. If you know or don't know Bukowski, you should visit Bukowski.net. It is the online epicenter for discussion of the poet. Very friendly, very knowledgable people frequent the forum and are always good for a suggestion. I'm in the habit of liking the first thing I see, so here are the first two stanzas from the first poem I flipped to:
"girl on the escalator"
as I go to the escalator
a young fellow and a lovely girl
are ahead of me.
her pants, her blouse are skin-
tight.
as we ascend
she rest one foot on the
step above and her behind
assumes a fascinating shape.
the young man looks all
around.
he appears worried.
he looks at me.
I look
away.no, young man, I am not looking,
I am not looking at your girl's behind.
don't worry, I respect her and I respect you.
in fact, I respect everthing: the flowers that grow, young women,
children, all the animals, our precious complicated
universe, everyone and everything.
I don't have any spare galleys of Buk. But since it's Friday, I want to give books away for free.
The first three people to e-mail me at [email protected] with the subject heading "Mythical Proportions" and their mailing address will receive a copy of the newly reissued Let Us Compare Mythologies by Leonard Cohen (pictured above to the left).
*Ben, Mike, and Evan win the copies!
How did you get ahold of Bukowski's work? What happened to Black Sparrow? Is the Murdoch empire buying up everything?
(What could a genteel conformist like you possibly have in common with Bukowski? You're cannibalizing the underground.)
Posted by: K.I.N.G. Wenclas | June 08, 2007 at 03:35 PM