The American Dissident: Literature, Democracy & Dissidence

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Charles Bukowski--Critical Poems

Bukowski did at times bite the hand that feeds as witnessed by the following excerpt from New York Quarterly, a literary journal: 
NYQ: You’ve read most of the NYQ craft interviews we’ve published. What do you think of our approach, the interviews you’ve read. What interviews have told you something?
CB: I’m sorry you asked that question. I haven’t learned anything from the interviews except that the poets were studious, trained, self-assured and obnoxiously self-important. I don’t think that I was ever able to finish an interview; the print began to blur and the trained seals vanished below the surface. These people lack joy, madness and gamble in their answers just as they do in their work (poems). 
 

evidence

whores and great poets should

avoid one another:

their professions are dangerously

similar:

from the Roman Empire to our

Atomic Age

there have been about an equal

number of whores and

poets

with the authorities continually

trying to outlaw

the former

and ignore the latter

—which tells you

how dangerous

poetry

really

is.

 

 

the replacements
Jack London drinking his life away while

writing of strange and heroic men.

Eugene O’Neill drinking himself oblivious

while writing his dark and poetic

works.

 

now our moderns

lecture at universities

in tie and suit,

the little boys soberly studious,

the little girls with glazed eyes

looking

up,

the lawns so green, the books so dull,

the life so dying of

thirst.

 

 

Termites of the page
Most of these poets

that I have known

have

seemingly existed on

air alone

but

it hasn't been truly

so;

behind them has been

a family member

usually a wife or mother

supporting these/ souls

and

so it's no wonder

they have written so

poorly:

they have been protected

against the actualities

from the

beginning

and they

understand nothing

but the ends of their

fingernails

and

their delicate

hairlines

their lymph

nodes.

 

their words are unlived,

unfurnished, un-

true, and worse—so

fashionably

dull.

 

soft and safe

they gather together to

plot, hate, gossip,

most of these

American poets

pushing and hustling their

talents

playing at

greatness.

 

poet (?):

that word needs re-

defining.

 

when I hear that

word

I get a rising in the

gut

as if I were about to

puke.

let them have the

stage

so long

as I need not be

in the

audience.