the trash can -- Charles Bukowski

Winding up the computer poetry theme, here's a poem suggested by
Salima Virani

(Poem #1421) the trash can this is great, I just wrote two poems I didn't like. there is a trash can on this computer. I just moved the poems over and dropped them into the trash can. they're gone forever, no paper, no sound, no fury, no placenta and then just a clean screen awaits you. it's always better to reject yourself before the editors do. especially on a rainy night like this with bad music on the radio. and now-- I know what you're thinking: maybe he should have trashed this misbegotten one also. ha, ha, ha, ha. -- Charles Bukowski

        (From Betting on the Muse - Poems and Stories
         Black Sparrow Press, 1996.)

I know we've just had a poem by Bukowski, but I was specifically on the
lookout for something on the role of computers in the creative process, and
when Salima sent me today's wonderful little piece, I knew I had to run it.
The light, perfectly balanced verse captures very well, the fluidity, almost
I could say the liberation, that the computer affords the wordsmith -
nothing is permanent unless you want it to be[1], erasing a word, a line, an
entire poem is no harder than a click of a button.

Words on paper have a definite inertia to them - the crossed out lines track
their way indelibly across the sheet, a visible and increasingly messy
record of a work's revision history. Contrast the aesthetic freedom of

                          no
         paper, no sound, no
         fury, no placenta
         and then
         just a clean screen
         awaits you.

And the poem itself definitely reflects that freedom, the lines pouring
forth with careless abandon until they reach a hilariously antipoetic
conclusion that made me laugh out loud. A fitting ending to the theme, I
think. Ha, ha, ha. Ha.

martin

[1] or sometimes, tragically, even if you do - see Poem #1420 :)

Hemingway Never Did This -- Charles Bukowski

Guest poem sent in by John K. Taber , who writes:

(Poem #1420) Hemingway Never Did This I read that he lost a suitcase full of manuscripts on a train and that they never were recovered. I can't match the agony of this but the other night I wrote a 3-page poem upon this computer and through my lack of diligence and practice and by playing around with commands on the menu I somehow managed to erase the poem forever. believe me, such a thing is difficult to do even for a novice but I somehow managed to do it. now I don't think this 3-pager was immortal but there were some crazy wild lines, now gone forever. it bothers more than a touch, it's some- thing like knocking over a good bottle of wine. and writing about it hardly makes a good poem. still, I thought somehow you'd like to know? if not, at least you've read this far and there could be better work down the line. let's hope so, for your sake and mine. -- Charles Bukowski

Let's not quibble with Buk, and tell him about unerase commands, ok? The
point is, the matter of fact use of the computer in a poem.

I've been interested for years now in poems that incorporate the computer.
Contemporary poets don't usually condemn the machine, as liberal arts people
did when I was a student. Machines have stopped being Blake's "dark, Satanic
mills" and are accepted as part of the landscape. Once in a while, even,
machines are accepted too enthusiastically.

There was another I recall, can't remember the poet, but it went something
like "Green be thy screen!" It was the poet's gratitude for the convenience
of the computer for her in writing poems. Again, as Martin observed, some of
these poems quickly date. I'm old enough that green screens are strongly in
my memory, but I daresay many readers today have never seen a monochrome
monitor.

There is Brautigan's "Machines of Amazing Grace." I didn't cotton to his
poem because for me there is something chilling about benevolent machines
watching over me. [I didn't cotton to it either, mostly because it did
nothing for me, and because I can only take Brautigan in very short poems -
martin]

Still, there is a bunch of poems, enough I think to make an anthology.

John K. Taber

[Martin adds]

The thing I noticed about today's poem is that it is, in a sense, the mirror
image of the Jonas piece [Poem #1418] that introduced the theme.  Whereas
Jonas treated computers as a metaphor, using them as a poetic device to
illumine the age-old themes of love and loss, in Bukowski's poem the
computer is the *subject* of the work, a mundane fact of life that is in
turn illumined by the poem's metaphors. And, of course, an occurrence that
most readers can empathise with :)

Incidentally, while I was googling Bukowski (with whom I was unfamiliar), I
came across the following gem:

  some people never go crazy.
  what truly horrible lives
  they must lead.
     -- Charles Bukowski

Apropos of nothing - I just wanted to share it.

martin

[Links]

  Biography (a trifle clumsily written, but detailed, and with several links
  after it):
    http://www.popsubculture.com/pop/bio_project/charles_bukowski.html

  A nice Bukowski site:
    http://home.swipnet.se/~w-15266/cultur/bukowski/

oh yes -- Charles Bukowski

Guest poem submitted by Aravind Inumpudi:

(Poem #901) oh yes there are worse things than being alone but it often takes decades to realize this and most often when you do it's too late and there's nothing worse than too late. -- Charles Bukowski

For me, Bukowski's poetry came from the "other side of TV" - daring to
explore in mundane terms, events and lives which are otherwise conveniently
overlooked or sugar-coated with enough abstraction. This poem with its
delicious recursive aspect seems to emulate to perfection this very aspect
of Bukowski's work.

Arvind.

[Biography]

Charles Bukowski was born in Andernach, Germany on August 16, 1920 and came
with his family to the United States when he was three years old. He grew up
in poverty in Los Angeles, drifted extensively, and for much of his life
made his home in San Pedro. Bukowski had been a writer since childhood,
published his first story at age twenty four, and began publishing poetry
when he was thirty-five.

Bukowski is generally considered to be an honorary "beat writer", although
he was never actually associated with Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and the
other bona fide beats. His style, which exhibits a strong sense of immediacy
and a refusal to embrace standard formal structure, has earned him a place
in the hearts of beat generation readers, and the contributers to the
alt.books.beatgeneration newsgroup. He was a prolific (it isn't known how
much he had written; much of it was sent off to publishers long-hand and
never seen again), free-formed, humorous, and painfully honest writer. His
topics included hang-overs, the shit stains on his underwear, classical
music, horse-racing and whores. He was at home with the people of the
streets, the skid row bums, the hustlers, the transient life style. His
language is the poetry of the streets viewed from the honesty of a
hang-over.

Most of Bukowski's work is based on his own experience. In 'Ham On Rye' we
follow his autobiographical character, Henry Chinaski through his childhood
and early years. In 'Factotum' we again find Henry Chinaski, now in his most
vinous days, wandering from city to city, from job to job, from woman to
woman. Bukowski became widely known after the release of the movie 'Barfly'
(produced by Francis Ford Coppola), based on his life around the time
Factotum takes place. Bukowski wrote the screenplay and was somewhat
involved in the production of this film which featured Mickey O'Rourke in
the role of Chinaski/Bukowski.

Prior to the release of Barfly, Bukowski was best known by the public at
large for his novel Post Office. Although Barfly brought Hank to the masses
in a big way, Bukowski is primarily known in literary circles for his
poetry. He has stated that he does not consider himself a poet, but simply a
writer. "To say I'm a poet puts me in the company of versifiers,
neontasters, fools, clods, and scoundrels masquerading as wise men." He has
also made clear that he does not like "form" in poetry, referring to it as
"a paycheck for learning to turn the same screw that has held things
together."

Charles Bukowski died on March 9, 1994 in his adopted hometown of San Pedro,
California.

        -- Michael McCullough, http://www.litkicks.com/Buk/bukmain.html