On Drinking - Charles Bukowski

2019, 251 pages. New Author? : No. Genres: Poetry; Collections; Alcohol; Letters & Correspondence; Excerpts. Overall Rating : 7½*/10.

Charles Bukowski, aka the Poet of the Proletariat. Born August 16, 1920; died March 20, 1994. According to Wikipedia, the FBI kept a file on him, which means he's my kind of writer.

In addition to thousands of poems, Bukowski wrote six novels, hundreds of short stories, and a bunch of newspaper columns, the latter apparently being what piqued the FBI's attention.

More than sixty books have been published, so you can read his opinions on all sorts of things. But his favorite topics were his writing, the women in his life, the various crappy jobs he held while trying to make it as an author, the various crappy living conditions that went along with those jobs, and the multitude of fights he got into while enduring those living conditions. And booze.

Bukowski was an unapologetic imbiber of copious amounts of alcohol. Beer, wine, whiskey, you name it. He had a lot to say about getting drunk, writing while drunk, fighting while drunk, loving while drunk, and waking up with hangovers after being drunk.

Now, Abel Debritto has combed through Bukowski's literary output, extracted his best comments about the joys of booze, and compiled them into a coherent book.

With the straightforward and unambiguous title On Drinking.

What’s To Like...

On Drinking is part of a four-book series of Charles Bukowski's thoughts on his favorite themes. The other three books are: On Writing, On Love, and the surprising On Cats. I've already downloaded two of these to my Kindle. The selections come in all sorts of forms: poems, correspondence, prose, autobiographical excerpts, drinking stories, you name it.

I liked that Abel Debritto arranges the entries in chronological order, covering three decades of Buko's life, from 1961 to 1992. I found it interesting that early in his career, Bukowski claims he can only write when he's drunk. Later on, he changes his mind and asserts that he can write equally well while drunk or sober.

Beyond the titular theme of getting drunk, I learned a lot about Bukowski. We share a favorite Chinese poet: Li Po, and Bukowski even dedicated one of his poems ("Immortal Wind") to him. Bukowski always had the radio on when writing, and listened to classical symphonies and composers such as Stravinsky. He gives us an insider's view of life in a drunk tank, which I am glad to say I've never experienced, and when he came down with tuberculosis late in life, he despaired because it meant he had to give up drinking and smoking. Later on, he rejoiced when doctors declared him to be TB-free, presumably celebrating by renewing old habits.

For me, the most telling aspect of the book was reading about the highs and lows of Buko's lifelong relationship with booze. The multiple trips to the charity ward, a poor man's hospital. Not being able to drive because of 2 DUI's and no insurance. His obnoxious behavior at a zen wedding. And having to stand before a "drunk tank judge".

There are a couple of neat sketches, done by Bukowski himself, scattered throughout the book, as well as a few candid photos of him. I found the "Publisher's Note" at the beginning of the book interesting: apparently trying to convert prose into an e-book format is quite the challenge. The "Extras" at the back are pretty normal: Sources, Acknowledgements, About the Authors, and "Also by Charles Bukowski".

Ratings…

Amazon: 4.9/5 based on 94 ratings.

Goodreads: 3.92/5 based on 398 ratings and 47 reviews

Excerpts...

"Everybody's talking about liberation now, that's the thing, you know. Do you know that?"

No response. They didn't know that.

"All right, I say let's liberate the roaches and the alcoholics. What's wrong with a roach? Can anybody tell me what's wrong with a roach?"

"Well, they stink and they're ugly," said some guy.

"So's an alcoholic. They sell us the stuff to drink, don't they? Then we drink it and they throw us in jail. I don't understand. Does anybody understand this?"

No response. They didn't understand. (loc. 1223)

As you know, the worst drinking is done

on an empty stomach, while smoking heavily and downing many different

types of libations.

and the worst hangovers are when you

awaken in your car or in a strange room

or in an alley or in jail.

the worst hangovers are when you

awaken to realize that you have done

something absolutely vile, ignorant and

possibly dangerous the night before

but

you can't quite remember what it was. (loc. 2926)

Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must live. (loc. 1162)

On Drinking will not please everyone. For starters there's a lot of cussing and various sexual situations. Naturally, every single excerpt has some drinking in it, although hardly any drugs, which surprised me.

At times the book gets repetitive, but I anticipated that. After all, even if you're a wordsmith like Bukowski, there are only so many things you can say about getting drunk and having hangovers.

Finally, as with anything autobiographical, you have to ask yourself: how much is factual and how much is hyperbole? Bukowski paints himself as legendary drinker and lover, a superior fighter (when drunk), and a rude party guest. Did all these balls, brawls, and falls really happen, or are they exaggerations that make for good stories?

Who knows, but I liked the book.

7½ Stars. It's been a while since I'd read anything by Charles Bukowski, aka Henry "Hank" Chinaski, so for me On Drinking felt like meeting up with an old acquaintance after a long absence. I liked this novel way of repackaging his literary commentary, and am looking forward to reading his comments on women and writing.

Wilderness - Volume 1 - The Lost Writings of Jim Morrison

      1988; 212 pages.  New Author? : Yes.  Full Title: Wilderness – The Lost Writings of Jim Morrison – Volume 1.  Genres : American Poetry; Diaries and Journals; Rock Stars.  Overall Rating : 5½*/10.

    Jim Morrison.  Born December 08, 1943.  Died July 03, 1971, age 27.  Lead singer of The Doors, and a stellar member of the “27 Club" (see the review here).  But he saw himself first and foremost as a poet, and in a “self-interview” at the start of this book, he says:

    “Listen, real poetry doesn’t say anything, it just ticks off the possibilities.  Opens all doors.  You can walk through any one that suits you.

    “…and that’s why poetry appeals to me so much – because it’s so eternal.  As long as there are people, they can remember words and combinations of words.  Nothing else can survive a holocaust but poetry and songs.  No one can remember an entire novel.  No one can describe a film, a piece of sculpture, a painting, but so long as there are human beings, songs and poetry can continue.

    “If my poetry aims to achieve anything, it’s to deliver people from the limited ways in which they see and feel.”

    And that’s as good of a way to introduce Wilderness – Volume 1: The Lost Writings of Jim Morrison as I can come up with.

What’s To Like...

    According to the publishers, Jim Morrison left more than 1,600 pages of poems, lyrics, stories, film scripts, etc. when he died, yet not one page was ever dated, numbered, or identified chronologically.  So there’s no order to the poems given in Wilderness – Volume 1, indeed, most of them don’t even have titles.  There is an “Index of First Lines” at the back of the book to help if you’re searching for a particular poem, and I thought that was a nice touch.

    The publishers divide the book into 10 sections of unequal length.  By far the longest part is simply called “Poems 1966-1971”, and comprises of 125 pages of the 212-page book.  The section “Ode to LA while thinking of Brian Jones, Deceased” is both ironic and haunting, since Brian Jones is also a member of the 27 Club.  “For Arden” is unique in that it has a few lines that have both meter and rhyming.  And “As I Look Back” is eerily retrospective, almost as if Jim Morrison knows he isn’t going to live much longer.

    As a longtime lover of The Doors, I enjoyed finding “early versions” of some of the lyrics that were later incorporated into the songs.  There are four “rough drafts” of L’America, a track off of L.A. Woman, and none of them are even close to resembling the final version.  The snippet of poetry in Peace Frog, from Morrison Hotel, makes two early appearances in this book.  There’s a poem titled Horse Latitudes, which is also a song title on the album Strange Days, and even a line from the titular L.A. Woman track started out a poem here.

    A half dozen or so photographs of Jim are interspersed throughout the book, along with some scans of a couple of the original pages from Jim Morrison's notebooks.  There are also a number of blank pages.  To say this book is a "fast read" is an understatement.  You can probably read the whole book in an hour or so, although personally, I find poetry easier to read in small “chunks”.

    I think the best thing about Wilderness – Volume 1 is that it gave me a glimpse of the “real” Jim Morrison.  Let’s face it, his antics and gyrations as the lead singer of The Doors are all an act.  But the scribbled prose in his notebooks give us keen insight into the strange thoughts that were swarming around in his head.

Excerpts...

    Why do I drink?

    So that I can write poetry.

    Sometimes when it’s all spun out

    and all that is ugly recedes

    into a deep sleep

    There is an awakening

    and all that remains is true.

    As the body is ravaged

    the spirit grows stronger.

    Forgive me Father for I know

    what I do.

    I want to hear the last Poem

    of the last Poet.  (pg. 119)

    Indians scattered on dawn’s highway bleeding

    Ghosts crowd the young child’s fragile eggshell mind

    We scaled the wall

    We tripped thru the graveyard

    Ancient shapes were all around us

    No music but the wet grass

    felt fresh beside the fog

    Two made love in a silent spot

    one chased a rabbit into the dark

    A girl got drunk & made the dead

    And I gave empty sermons to my head  (pg. 180)

Which of my cellves will be remember’d?  Good-bye America.  I loved you.  (pg. 209 )

    There were a couple of nits to pick.  First, there are four or five instances of cussing in the book, but that’s a lot less than I would have expected.

    Second, many of the “poems” seem to be nothing more than bits of streams-of-consciousness that Jim Morrison jotted down for later polishing and rework.  There is some good stuff here; as the two excerpts given above demonstrate.  But the bulk of the material seems like mere jottings, just lumps of clay that Jim Morrison would later develop into literary works of art.  I have a feeling that if he was still alive today, he’d forbid these poems being published “as is”.

    Also, some of these poems are short, sometimes having as little as three lines.  That adds to the significant amounts of blank space in the book, since the publishers seem averse to combining more than one poem on a given page.

    I suppose this means the reader has lots of room to scribble in his own thoughts about the poems, or maybe even to take a stab at polishing some of these, but I think a few trees could have been saved by making more efficient use of half-filled pages, and either adding more entries from the thousand-plus pages of Morrison-penned poesy or else combining Volumes 1 and 2 in this series into a single book.

    5½ Stars.  If you’re a Doors fan, I think Wilderness – Volume 1 will be a worthwhile read, giving you an honest look at a brilliant, yet sadly troubled mind.  But if you have no idea who Jim Morrison, or The Doors are, you might want to skip this book and go listen a couple of their albums instead.

Slabs of the Sunburnt West - Carl Sandburg

   1922; 75 pages.  New Author? : Yes.    Genre : American Poetry; ; 20^th Century Poetry; Highbrow Literature.  Overall Rating : 6*/10.

    2019 is drawing to a close, and it’s time to read my once-a-year poetry book.  This year, I've decided to go with something from a 20^th-century American poet.  Somebody serious, highbrow, and whom I’ve never read/reviewed before.

    That eliminates Shel Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends, which I read decades ago.  And Dr. Seuss.  Neither of those qualify as “serious.  Ditto for Allen Ginsberg and Charles Bukowski, the latter known as “The Poet of the Proletariat”.  They’re both fantastic, but calling them “highbrow” is a bit of a stretch.  and I’ve used them for my poetry goals in previous years.

    Off the top of my head, I can only think of two poets for this undertaking – Robert Frost and Carl Sandburg.  We were forced to read some of Robert Frost’s stuff in high school – “two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not travel both…” - and all that.  Sheesh, that stuff stays etched in my brain.

    That leaves Mr. Sandburg, and I can’t quote any of his poetry by heart.  So let’s find something short and sweet, and see if I can broaden my poetic horizons.  Like his 75-page-long book, Slabs of the Sunburnt West.

What’s To Like...

    Slabs of the Sunburnt West consists of 32 poems covering a scant 75 pages, and published in 1922, a couple of years after Carl Sandburg (1878-1967) won his first (of three) Pulitzer Prizes for his book of poems “Cornhuskers”.  Sandburg is noted for his stark portrayals of America in his day, particularly the Midwest which was his stomping ground for most of his life.

    I didn’t see any overarching theme in Slabs of the Sunburnt West.  The poems vary in both length and tone, and literary devices such as rhyming and meter are not used.  The longest entry was 15 pages,  quite a few of them were a half-page in length.  The book can be an incredibly fast read, so if you have a book report due tomorrow and you haven’t even started to read one, you can impress your English teacher by choosing this one.

    My favorite poems in the bunch, in order of appearance, are:

And So Today (pg. 20)

Moon Riders (pg. 34)

At The Gates of Tombs (pg. 37)

Gypsy Mother (pg. 41)

Improved Farm Land (pg. 63)

Slabs of the Sunburnt West (pg. 67)

    “And So Today” chronicles Carl Sandburg’s thoughts on the dedication of the (first) Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and I found it particularly powerful.  “Improved Farm Land” laments the deforestation of the Midwest to make room for acres upon acres of cornfields.  And I learned to origin of the city name “Chicago” by reading the first poem, "The Windy City".

    In general, I preferred the longer poems, and the few that had a whimsical air to them.  The poem that resonated the most with me was the titular “Slabs of the Sunburnt West”, reading as if Sandburg was observing the far west for the first time, from the window of a train.  It would’ve been a lot more brown and less green than his native Illinois, similar to how I felt when my family moved from Pennsylvania to Arizona when I finished high school.

 Kewlest New Word ...

Teameoes (n., plural) : Who knows?  Googling didn’t give any definition for this word.  Methinks Mr. Sandburg made it up.

Excerpts...

And so today – they lay him away

The boy nobody knows the name of-

The buck private – the unknown soldier –

The doughboy who dug under and died

When they told him to – that’s him.

If he picked himself and said, “I am ready to die,”

If he gave his name and said, “My country, take me,”

Then the baskets of roses to-day are for the Boy,

The flowers, the songs, the steamboat whistles,

The proclamations of the honorable orators,

They are all for the Boy – that’s him.

(pg. 21, from “And So Today”)

Brancusi, you will not put a want ad in the papers telling

God it will be to his advantage to come around and see

You; you will not grow gabby and spill God earfuls of

Prayer; you will not get fresh and familiar as if God

Is a next-door neighbor and you have counted His shirts

On a clothes line; you will go stammering, stuttering, and

Mumbling or you will be silent as a mouse in a church

Garret when the pipe organ is pouring ocean waves on

The sunlit rocks of ocean shores; if God is saving a corner

For any battling bag of bones, there will be one for you,

There will be one for you, Brancusi.

(pg. 53; from “Brancusi”)

Civilizations are set up and knocked down

The same as pins in a bowling alley.
(pg. 37, from “At The Gates of Tombs”)

    Poetry is not my favorite reading genre and when I do tackle it, I greatly prefer for the lines to rhyme and have meter.  Therefore Slabs of the Sunburnt West was a bit of a slog for me.  A couple of the entries, such as “Hell on the Wabash” (pg. 64) didn’t even seem like they qualified to be called poetic.  I employed my usual strategy for books of poems: reading only a couple of them at any given sitting.

    Overall, for me there were a half-dozen fantastic poems interspersed among a lot of ones that didn’t do much for me.  Still, if I have to read high-falutin’ poetry by an upstanding 20^th-century American poet, I’d choose Sandburg over Frost any day.

    6 Stars.  Carl Sandburg lived till the ripe old age of 89, garnering three Pulitzers (two for Poetry, one for History), before passing away in 1967, when I was 17.  If you look up this book at Amazon, you’ll find zero reviews for it.  At Goodreads, it has 14 ratings and one review.  It seems as if America has pretty much forgotten one of its foremost writers.  And I find that kind of sad.

The Congo, and Other Poems - Vachel Lindsay

   1914 (original) & 2008 (this compilation); 102 pages.  New Author? : Yes.    Genre : American Literature; Poetry.  Overall Rating : 7*/10.

    “Hey, let’s sing a poem together!”

    “Say what?  You read poems; you don’t sing poems.”

    “Sure you do.  The ancient Greeks did it all the time.  But if you don’t feel like singing one, we could chant it together instead.”

    “That’s just as crazy.  Besides, I don’t speak a word of ancient Greek.”

    “No problem.  There’s this American poet who has written poems to be sung or chanted, not read to oneself.  He even writes directions on exactly how loud you’re supposed to do it, and what tone of voice you should use.”

    “Hmm.  Sounds like some sort of 1960’s beatnik.  Or maybe a rap artist.”

    “Nope.  He wrote these poems more than a hundred years ago, in and around 1914.  Back before anybody else was doing this sort of thing.  Except for the ancient Greeks, of course.”

    “Really?!  Well, okay then.  I’m out of excuses.  Let’s give it a try.  What’s this guy’s name, anyway?”

    “Vachel Lindsay.”

What’s To Like...

    The Congo, and Other Poems is a set of 66 of Vachel Lindsay’s poems, although it's not his complete works.  Wikipedia calls Lindsay the “founder of modern singing poetry” but he also wrote a lot of poems in the standard, metered format.

    The book is divided into five sections, namely:

Section 1 : “Poems intended to be read aloud, or chanted.” (14%; 10 poems)

    The “singing/chanting” section.  The poems he’s most famous for.

Section 2 : “Incense” (43%; 17 poems)

    Lindsay reflecting on various themes, including love and all kinds of religions.

Section 3 : “A Miscellany called the Christmas Tree” (59%; 12 poems)

    Light-hearted poems; often short, and with children as the target audience.

Section 4 : “20 Poems in which the Moon is the principle figure of speech” (70%; 20 poems)

    Lindsay apparently had a thing about the moon.

Section 5 : "War – September 1, 1914, Intended to be read aloud” (81%; 7 poems)

    Dark in tone, somber, brooding.  Written about the horrors of The Great War.

    I can’t really say I have a favorite section.  I liked the broad spectrum of moods he could conjure up: – whimsical when writing humorous verse, serious when musing about Death or Heaven, outraged when contemplating war or child prostitution; star-struck when idolizing some of his matinee idols.  Vachel Lindsay is  most famous for his singing/chanting works, but he also wrote poems in the usual meter, and a few with no meter at all.  I was especially impressed by his use of ABAB and ABBA rhyme schemes; most poets use the lazier ABCB format.

    His most famous poem by far is The Congo, which Wikipedia describes as exemplifying “his revolutionary aesthetic of sound for sound's sake. It imitates the pounding of the drums in the rhythms and in onomatopoeic nonsense words. At parts, the poem ceases to use conventional words when representing the chants of Congo's indigenous people, relying just on sound alone.”  It is also his most controversial poem, with him being frequently accused of being racist, or at least patronizing, even by 1914 standards.  Personally, I don’t think he was racist, just blithely naïve.

    A lot of his poems have catchy titles, such as: The Black Hawk War of the Artists; A Rhyme About an Electric Advertising Sign; The Alchemist’s Petition; Popcorn, Glass Balls, and Cranberries; An Apology for the Bottle Volcanic; When Gassy Thompson Struck It Rich; and Abraham Lincoln Walks At Midnight.  I chortled at his mention of hashish.  In this book, along with the recently-read Babbitt, it is evident that the American drug problem was around long before the 60's.

    I read a couple of these poems each night, which is my usual strategy when reading a book of poetry.  But if you have a book report due tomorrow, this is a good choice; you can finish it easily in a single sitting (1-2 hours).  I have to admit, I enjoyed making myself “mentally” chant the poems in the first section according to their instructions.  I did not attempt to sing any of them.

    I had never heard of Vachel Lindsay before reading The Congo, and Other Poems.  My impression now is that he was a 1920’s “Poet of the Proletariat”, the mantle for which would later pass to Charles Bukowski.  No one will ever mistake Vachel Lindsay’s verses with that of Shakespeare, but I found this book to be an enjoyable and thoughtful read, and beamed at the slight broadening of my narrow poetry tastes.

Kewlest New Word ...

Hecatombs (n., plural) : (In ancient Greece or Rome) great public sacrifices, originally consisting of one hundred oxen.

Others : Pennons (n., plural).

Excerpts...

    Sagged and reeled and pounded on the table,

    Pounded on the table,

    Beat an empty barrel with the handle of a broom,

    Hard as they were able,

    Boom, boom, BOOM,

    With a silk umbrella and the handle of a broom,

    Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM.

    THEN I had religion, THEN I had a vision.

     I could not turn from their revel in derision.  (loc. 162, from “The Congo”)

    This is the sin against the Holy Ghost:

    To speak of bloody power as right divine,

    And call on God to guard each vile chief’s house,

    And for such chiefs, turn men to wolves and swine.

    (…)

    In any Church’s name, to sack fair towns,

    And turn each home into a screaming sty,

    To make little children fugitive,

    And have their mothers for a quick death cry.

    (loc. 974; from “The Unpardonable Sin”)

Kindle Details...

    The Congo, and Other Poems sells for $0.99 at Amazon.  There are several other collections of Vachel Lindsay’s poems, most of which include The Congo.  They range from free to $3.39.  I went with the 99-cents version because it seemed like the freebie might just be scanned images of the paperback, in which case, Kindle-highlighting might not have been available.  A dollar for a book isn’t going to break me.

We find your soft Utopias as white

As new-cut bread, and dull as life in cells.  (loc. 500, from “An Argument”)

    A few words about Vachel Lindsay…

    He was born November 10, 1879; and died December 05, 1931.  “The Congo” was written in 1914,  and his most productive period seems to have been the World War One years.

    He was an energetic poet, at one point traveling by foot through several western states for inspiration.  His aim was to restore “poetry as a song art, appealing to the ear rather than the eye.”

    Alas, he was also a  “starving artist” poet.  In 1931, plagued by financial worries and failing health, he committed suicide by drinking a bottle of Lysol.  Ouch.

    7 Stars.  YouTube has a decent number of videos showing people singing Vachel Lindsay’s works.  I’m not sure if they wrote their own music or if Lindsay composed it.  One thing that made me laugh was the various ways that the video-narrators guessed as to how to pronounce “Vachel”.  According to this book, it rhymes with “Rachel”.