Bukowski night at Smiths!

Jethro said :

poetix said :

Jethro said :

Most of us just drank wine and pretended we were more interesting than we actually are. I, for example, wore a hat.

Was it a nice hat?

Well, nice covers so many bases, doesn’t it? :
(a) I see it as nice in a ‘I’m a poet who shops at op-shops who has no awareness of her husband’s income’ sort of way. Ideal for a Bukowski reading!

(b) Yes, it is a nice hat. One of the gorgeous young women who works at Tilley’s told me so. Her casual comment made my day.

(c) It has shiny bits.

Was it eaten by a bear?

if so, let’s hope poetix wasn’t in it at the time…

poetix said :

Jethro said :

Most of us just drank wine and pretended we were more interesting than we actually are. I, for example, wore a hat.

Was it a nice hat?

Well, nice covers so many bases, doesn’t it? :
(a) I see it as nice in a ‘I’m a poet who shops at op-shops who has no awareness of her husband’s income’ sort of way. Ideal for a Bukowski reading!

(b) Yes, it is a nice hat. One of the gorgeous young women who works at Tilley’s told me so. Her casual comment made my day.

(c) It has shiny bits.

Was it eaten by a bear?

Jethro said :

Most of us just drank wine and pretended we were more interesting than we actually are. I, for example, wore a hat.

Was it a nice hat?

Well, nice covers so many bases, doesn’t it? :
(a) I see it as nice in a ‘I’m a poet who shops at op-shops who has no awareness of her husband’s income’ sort of way. Ideal for a Bukowski reading!

(b) Yes, it is a nice hat. One of the gorgeous young women who works at Tilley’s told me so. Her casual comment made my day.

(c) It has shiny bits.

poetix said :

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

… … … … …

Since then ’tis centuries, and yet each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses’ heads
Were toward eternity.

Philistine! You’ve totally misquoted this. You left off 28 of her (intentional) initial-capital letters.

poetix said :

Just got back from this. I still think Bukowski was not the world’s greatest poet, as the rather name-shy Steven, (I think? the youngish man with the longish hair who dresses quite conservatively), said in his introduction. And conclusion. Bukowski’s poem about bluebirds borders on the sticky slough of Hallmark, for instance. But his work reads out loud better than it does on the page, especially when done by someone like Kathy (spelling?) who could read ACT Assembly minutes and make them almost as exciting as Shakespeare.

And there is the exploration of the linking of the mundane and the sacred there, which appeals to a God-botherer like me. Peter Strong (Smith’s owner who supports so many events) read a poem inspired by Bukowski which was quite substantially cool. On the whole, it was a far gentler night than might have been expected, and that, in my opinion, is good.

Most of us just drank wine and pretended we were more interesting than we actually are. I, for example, wore a hat.

Was it a nice hat?

Thanks for the review.

poetix said :

…Most of us just drank wine and pretended we were more interesting than we actually are. I, for example, wore a hat.

So not too much different to the Beats at all, really.

Just got back from this. I still think Bukowski was not the world’s greatest poet, as the rather name-shy Steven, (I think? the youngish man with the longish hair who dresses quite conservatively), said in his introduction. And conclusion. Bukowski’s poem about bluebirds borders on the sticky slough of Hallmark, for instance. But his work reads out loud better than it does on the page, especially when done by someone like Kathy (spelling?) who could read ACT Assembly minutes and make them almost as exciting as Shakespeare.

And there is the exploration of the linking of the mundane and the sacred there, which appeals to a God-botherer like me. Peter Strong (Smith’s owner who supports so many events) read a poem inspired by Bukowski which was quite substantially cool. On the whole, it was a far gentler night than might have been expected, and that, in my opinion, is good.

Most of us just drank wine and pretended we were more interesting than we actually are. I, for example, wore a hat.

This is very much a SHAG approved event.

BEER

I don’t know how many bottles of beer
I have consumed while waiting for things
to get better
I dont know how much wine and whisky
and beer
mostly beer
I have consumed after
splits with women-
waiting for the phone to ring
waiting for the sound of footsteps,
and the phone to ring
waiting for the sounds of footsteps,
and the phone never rings
until much later
and the footsteps never arrive
until much later
when my stomach is coming up
out of my mouth
they arrive as fresh as spring flowers:
“what the hell have you done to yourself?
it will be 3 days before you can fuck me!”

the female is durable
she lives seven and one half years longer
than the male, and she drinks very little beer
because she knows its bad for the figure.

while we are going mad
they are out
dancing and laughing
with horney cowboys.

well, there’s beer
sacks and sacks of empty beer bottles
and when you pick one up
the bottle fall through the wet bottom
of the paper sack
rolling
clanking
spilling gray wet ash
and stale beer,
or the sacks fall over at 4 a.m.
in the morning
making the only sound in your life.

beer
rivers and seas of beer
the radio singing love songs
as the phone remains silent
and the walls stand
straight up and down
and beer is all there is.

justin heywood said :

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

(The Second Coming)

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe has to be in my top 3 favourite novels of all time. READ IT.

poetix said :

Jim Jones said :

HenryBG said :

There’s nothing like American writing in general to find themes and language that date at an incredible pace.

Because America’s strongest impact on poetry was modernising what was becoming a tired artform. The impact of T.S. Elliot, Sylvia Plath, Emily Dickenson, the beat poets (Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti, most notably), e.e. cummings, Ezra Pound, Walt Whitman, etc. was all pretty progressive.

Dickinson is God.

Look at me. I’m Angie Dickinson.