About Me
Charles Bukowski was born Henry Charles Bukowski, Jr., in 1920 to an American serviceman and a German mother in the town of Andernach, Germany.At the age of 3, the Bukowski family moved to Los Angeles. During his youth and early teens, Bukowski endured weekly beatings meted out by his father, and suffered a painful and disfiguring case of acne vulgaris. These early traumas are chronicled in the autobiographical novel of his childhood, Ham on Rye.As a teenager, Bukowski developed a keen interest in literature. His favorite authors were John Fante, Robinson Jeffers, Dostoevsky and Ernest Hemingway. Bukowski began to write, submitting short stories to the leading literary journals of the day, getting only rejections. Finally, in 1944, at the age of 24, Bukowski was published in the experimental Story magazine. This was followed by an appearance in Caresse Crosby’s Black Sun Portfolio II.Bukowski published little for the next 10 years. During this time he concentrated, instead, on what he would later refer to as "fattening my experience." He worked a number of menial jobs: dog biscuit baker, ambulance driver, slaughterhouse worker, and shipping clerk (his experience in the blue-collar world would later be chronicled in his novel Factotum.) During this time, he gathered material that would be saved and put to use in his future writing, in tales of the down-and-out: barroom fights, tempestuous relationships, sadistic bosses, squalid hotels. Some of these experiences would later appear in the screenplay he wrote for the movie Barfly, in which he is portrayed by Mickey Rourke.In 1956, after years of heavy drinking, Bukowski nearly died of a stomach hemorrhage. While ignoring his doctor's advice to stay away from alcohol, he did nonetheless feel as though he had been given a second chance. He started writing poetry at this time, with great discipline and passion, wholly committing himself to his writing. Submitting his work to the small, grassroots poetry publications of the day, he was immediately published, widely noticed and became known as the "king of the little magazines."During this time, Bukowski took a job at the U.S. Post Office, first as a carrier, and then as a mail sorter. All the while, he continued writing and his reputation continued to grow among the small, but committed, poetry community. During these years, readers encountered the now familiar Bukowski style: direct, plainspoken "anecdotal voice narrative poems." Nothing about this poetry was academic or elevated; instead, much like Walt Whitman 100 years earlier, Bukowski was a person of the street writing for the people of the street. As Bukowski wrote in the 1950s and 1960s, he was able to employ a newly graphic, and sometimes scatological, language. The subject matter in his poems ranged from dramatic narratives (about prostitutes or drunken brawls) to everyday scenes (overhearing a conversation at a diner, taking his daughter to the beach), to thoughts and observations that exhibit an unusually sophisticated awareness of the human condition.In the 1960s Bukowski continued writing with great intensity, publishing in hundreds of poetry magazines. He had a weekly column, which appeared in the underground press, "Notes of a Dirty Old Man." In 1966 John Martin founded Black Sparrow Press, with Bukowski as its main author. Martin published two Bukowski books before making Bukowski an offer that would change his life: if Bukowski would quit the Post Office and write fulltime, Martin would pay Bukowski $100 a week for life. Bukowski agreed, and quit the Post Office in January 1970. A month later, Bukowski finished the draft of his first novel, Post Office.Through the Seventies, Bukowski’s reputation grew steadily, first in Europe, then gradually in the United States. The most well known of his works written during this period are Love is a Dog from Hell (poetry), Erections, Ejaculations and General Tales of Ordinary Madness (short stories), Notes of a Dirty Old Man (underground press columns), Post Office and Factotum (novels). Bukowski’s third novel, Women, was written about the many women he encountered at the onset of fame.By the Eighties, Bukowski had become an international celebrity and underground cult hero. He wrote the autobiographical screenplay for the 1987 film Barfly, and his work was translated widely across the globe. Continuing to write poetry, he also completed the novels Ham on Rye, about his childhood, and Hollywood, a novel that captured the bittersweet experience of the making of Barfly. In 1985, he married Linda Lee Beighle, who looked after Bukowski until the end, helping him to correct his diet and lead a more healthy life.Bukowski died in 1994, at the age of 73, of leukemia. New poems left unpublished at the time of his death will still be entering circulation through 2005Readers identify strongly with Bukowski's writing. His suffering gives them hope, and his pain is often one they have experienced themselves. His uncommon perceptions on common matters encourage readers to reflect on the world around them, and examine their own experiences. In an era where the truth is rarely heard, Bukowski's voice speaks out honestly against the hypocrisy, unfairness and cruelty that characterizes much of our world—in doing so, he says the things his readers wish they could say. Bukowski's values are those of diligence, courage, integrity, honesty, originality, and compassion. Bukowski's main message is: no matter how difficult, or how long the odds, make the most of your life and follow your talents. Bukowski's life serves as an example of how, if we stay focused and disciplined, we might be able to create a miracle out of the few days and nights we've been given.
