On Writing

by Charles Bukowski

Blazek told me about a year or 2 ago the F.B.I. came around to him and asked about me. you know, the National Foundation is govt. sponsored? that could be Carolyn’s silence and maybe I’ve fucked you too. think I told you a bigwig interviewed me in a long dark room with a lamp down at the end of big table. real Kafka-nazi stuff. I was told they didn’t like my column “Notes of a Dirty Old Man.” I asked, “are we to presume that the postal officials are the new critics of literature?” “uh, no, we didn’t mean that.” like hell. then he told me, “if you had stuck to poetry and poetry books you would have been all right.” “but this . . .” and he tapped the newspaper and my column, and left the rest unspoken. it is the writing itself that simply pisses them, but I’m hardly even obscene. they don’t know how to hook me. and we keep shaking hands. but they are waiting for my one slip and then they are going to step in and break my neck. meanwhile, they are hoping that I will get paranoid about the whole thing and start jumping at shadows and flush my supplies of luck down the crapper.

I am the siffed-up redhead being let out of the car on the corner.

he got liad laid, he didn’t get laid . .

Knut Hamsun—Hunger,

Well, maybe we don’t need GIANTS. Somehow, the giants have seemed to have left us fairly well short-changed. what? But then, too, I grow damned tired of the competent and even human writer. The answer is somewhere in the salami sky, and I mean of the spirit, not those idiots bumbling the moon. The first atrocity on the moon, the first war won’t be long in coming. Perhaps the first atrocity was the human foot upon the untouched.

methods. A man can write a story about fucking or even lousy women without being a woman-hater. The sisters must realize that limitations on certain forms of writing will eventually lead to control and limitation of all forms of writing except that chosen by some sanctioned body. A writer must be allowed to touch upon everything. Celine was accused of being anti-semitic and when asked about a certain passage—“The Jew’s heavy footsteps . . . ,” he stated, “I just don’t like people. In this case it happened to be a Jew.” Certain groups are more sensitive to being mentioned than others. Certain people object to being used as models.

After Thomas Wolfe’s first novel, he couldn’t go home again. Until later. Until he had been justified and sanctioned by the critics. Until he had made money. Then his people were proud to be in his novels. Creation can’t bear up under restrictions. Tell the sisters to keep their panties kool. we all need each other.

The hours go by very fast, and even when I’m not writing, I’m jelling, and that’s why I don’t like people around bringing me beer and chatting. They cross my sights, get me out of flow. Of course, I can’t sit in front of the typer night and day, so the racetrack is a good place to let the juices FLOW BACK IN. I can understand why Hemingway needed his bull ring—it was a quick action trip to reset his sights.

But I guess he just got his ass kicked once too often; a man finally bends and breaks and loses that little touch . . . great Art is pure ranting in a golden cage. Here Celine just rather throws spoiled apples at us and bits of snot. Still, on the other hand, if Castle had been written by anybody but Celine, I would have said, “Say here, look, this isn’t bad at all!” But it’s like with Beiles—you compare only the best to the best. You can’t help it. Once a man has leaped 18 feet straight up into the air and then comes back and only leaps 13 feet, it’s just not enough for us.

There is the possibility that for the first time in history we are not in a war of nation against nation but color against color—White, Black, Brown, Yellow. There’s a fierceness in the streets, a hatred. The trouble with the White race is that too many of them hate each other; this is true in other races but not to our degree. We lack the cohesion of Brotherhood. The only thing we have is a certain terrible brain power and cleverness and the ability to fight at the proper time, the ability to out-trick, out-think, and even out-gut the opposition. No matter how much the White man may hate himself, he is simply gifted, but it may be ending for one reason or another. . . . Spengler’s The Decline of the West, written so many years ago . . . the signs are showing . . . Either Whitey’s finally got to get some SOUL or all his cleverness will be just so much spilled jism . . .

No, the white man has just had a drive to subjugate others more than any other group.

Oh yes, I must say, anyhow, that it is dangerous for a poet to pose as prophet, a poet/writer to pose as prophet. Here in the U.S. most serious writers write for many years before they are heard from or recognized, if ever. Unfortunately, many damn fools are recognized because their minds are close to the public mind. Generally a writer of force is anywhere from 20 years to 200 years ahead of his generation, so therefore he starves, suicides, goes mad, and is only recognized if portions of his work are somehow found later, much later, in a shoebox or under the mattress of a whorehouse bed, you know.

Here’s a guy who’d been drinking cheap wine in a small room for 15 years, had to walk down the hall to the bathroom to take a crap. And when he typed, old ladies beat on their ceilings and floors with broom handles, scaring hell out of him . . . “Shut it up, you fool!” Suddenly out of some trick, he’s known . . . His work is banned, or he walked down Broadway with his pecker hanging out during the Santa Claus Parade and they found out he was a poet . . . Anything will do. Talent helps but it is not always necessary. One of the greatest sentences was said, not by a philosopher but by a baseball player who always had trouble keeping his average near .250 . . . Leo Durocher: “I’d rather be lucky than good . . .” This was because Durocher knew that ten or twelve lucky-bounce singles through the infield meant the difference between the minors and the majors.

Where before he had been a pure Artist saying it properly out of pain and madness and truth, now everybody is willing to listen to his babble when he no longer has anything to say. A name. A name! That’s all they want. And a beard if possible. The American Artist, so far as I know, with the exception of Jeffers and Pound, has always taken the bait. No names come to my mind immediately. But name-calling proves nothing. It happens! They are tricked and trapped, and, finally, though they don’t realize it, they will be thrown away. Because it was their original energy and truth that enticed the subnormal crowd anyhow .

I doubt that this is exactly what you wanted, Norm. I am hooked on my own cod-fish soul and do not claim exceptionality, although I probably have it, say, in my own certain fishy-way. When I’m hired to work as a staff writer for The New Yorker, I’ll let you know.

I rather guess Lawrence was a breast-man rather than a leg-man—anyhow, he had his COW and it all transferred through the cow, all the meanings the shades the messages, so he didn’t get it quite right. one cow: one message.

the stilted formalism, like chewing cardboard. I didn’t feel very good when I was 16, 17, 18, I walked into the libraries and there was nothing to read. I searched all the rooms, all the books. then I walked back out on the streets and I saw the first face, the buildings, the automobiles, whatever was being said had nothing to do with what I was seeing before my eyes, it was a mimic, a farce. there was no help. Hegel, Kant . . . some fucker called Andre Gide . . . names, names, and build-ups. Keats, what a bag of shit. nothing helped. I began to see something in Sherwood Anderson. He almost got there, he was clumsy and stupid, but he let you fill in the blanks. unforgivable. Faulkner was phoney as greased wax. Hemingway got close early, then started strumming and turning this big machine which kept farting in your face. Celine wrote one immortal book which made me laugh for nights and days (Journey), then he got into housewife petty bitching. Saroyan. he, like Hem, knew the importance of the root and the clear word, the easy and natural line, but Saroyan, knowing the line, kid, he lied: he said: BEAUTIFUL, BEAUTIFUL, and it wasn’t BEAUTIFUL. I wanted to hear what it was, all the chickenshit fears, the worries, the madness; fuck the grand stance. I couldn’t find it.

I don’t have it right yet. I probably won’t get it right. I even love my ignorance. I love my yellow butter-smeared belly of ignorance. I lick my god damn soul out with my typewriter tongue. I don’t entirely want art. I want entertainment, first. I want to forget. I want a buzzing, some shouting among the wine-dizzy chandeliers. I want. I mean, if we can work art in after we become interested, fine. but let’s not get holy, tra la, tra la.

Listen, I know what you mean, but Notes of a Human Being is just too precious. Notes of a Dirty Old Man takes the pressure off and allows me to say more. Probably, in history, more harm was done by guys thinking they were human beings than any other sort. I mean, let’s steer from the holy and maybe with a little luck we might get holy.

I’m not a true revolutionary. I just write words down. But the idea of replacing one govt. with another govt. hardly seems a major gain to me. we’ve got to begin with the individual. we’ve got to replace the individual we’ve got now with another type, or if we can’t do that we’ve got to patch him up a bit anyhow. and I don’t have the answers to that. more words, probably. words, words, words, words. the building of the flow. in one area all of us fail badly. the man-woman relationship. I’ve seen more bad faith and lacking and inconsistency in this area than in any about. people just aren’t large enough to care truly, and if the male and the female can’t find each other then how can they find a government?

well, I understand. I am living in the house of a young lady and there is sometimes trouble here—she says it’s love and I say love is trouble; anyhow, I leave my present address below and also one where I can be reached if somehow love makes me wander and vanish. Very good to hear from you. yes, yes.

There are some who think revolution should only be in the streets, not in the Arts. Understand that any new movement forward into the Arts has always (with exceptions) been met with derision and hostility and hatred. Exploration into sexuality or into any area of human maneuverability written down as poem, story or novel does not necessarily mean that I condone the action of the characters involved. Or, on the other hand, it may mean that I condone the action of the characters involved. I have no idea at the time of the writing. I am a feeler, not a thinker. I am often wrong, I write much crap, and the nature of much of my work is a gamble.

You are just like anybody else I know in my personal life. People have a tendency to guide me around, to pull me around by the nose. Once in a while I have to give them a nip on the hand. My old black cat, Butch, does that once in a while. I understand him more and more. Let’s hope that you understand me. It’s a long time to 80, if I make it, so let’s make the road clear with no bullshit on the path. I want to come to your funeral and be able to drop a tear and a small bouquet of flowers. Ok?

I guess we all go crazy now and then. Anyhow, the 2nd printing will read better. I guess when people compare the 2 editions they’ll never know the real story. They will be more apt to think that I went addled with senility and somebody else went ahead and made the changes for me. It’s pretty tough to take because I don’t mind being criticized for my own writing but to be laid open for somebody else’s isn’t so good. Anyhow, I will have to keep a closer watch on John in future work of mine. I doubt that he will fuck me up again. Sometimes I get rather sickened by some of Martin’s acts and methods. I wish you were my god damned editor, but thank the gods at least that I have you for a translator, agent, and friend. (oh yeah, John actually said, “Sometimes the typist gets bored and throws in something.” Wonder if Faulkner and J. Joyce were bothered with that?) [ . . . ]

I’ve found that the least talented scream the loudest, are the most abusive and the most self-assured.

I’ve found more gut-life in old newsboys, in janitors, in the kid waiting window at the all-night taco stand. It seems to me that writing draws the worst, not the best, it seems to me that the printing presses of the world are just endlessly pressing out the pulp of insufficient souls which insufficient critics call literature, poetry, prose. It’s useless, except for maybe that single bright spark, now and then, which seldom holds, knows how.

Let me state, that my distaste is for Humanity and especially, the creative writer. This is not only the age of Hydrogen doom, it is also the age of Fear, Immense Fear. I don’t like Whitey either. And I am Whitey.

Czeslaw Milosz,

I’m not all that isolated. I’ve had my crutches: F. Dos, Turgenev, some of Celine, some of Hamsun, most of John Fante, a great deal of Sherwood Anderson, very early Hemingway, all of Carson McCullers, the longer poems of Jeffers; Nietzsche and Schopenhauer; the style of Saroyan without the content; Mozart, Mahler, Bach, Wagner, Eric Coates; Mondrian; e. e. cummings and the whores of east Hollywood; Jack Nicholson; Jackie Gleason; Charlie Chaplin, early; Baron Manfred von Richthofen; Leslie Howard; Bette Davis; Max Schmeling; Hitler . . . D. H. Lawrence, A. Huxley and the old bartender with the cadmium red face in Philly . . . And there was a particular actress whose name I can no longer think of, who I consider to be, has been the most beautiful woman of our times. She drank herself

And the moderns borrow from the past and extend the error. Some claim that poetry is not for the many but for the few. So are most world governments. So are riches and the so-called class ladies. So are specially built toilets. The best study of poetry is to read it and forget it. Because a poem can’t be understood I don’t think is a special virtue. Because most poets write from protected lives what they write about is limited. I’d much rather talk to a garbage man, a plumber or a fry cook than to a poet. They just know more about the common problems and the common joys of staying alive.

Poetry can be entertaining, it can be written with an astonishing clarity, I don’t know why it has to be the other way, but it is. Poetry is like sitting in a stuffy room with the windows down. And very little is occurring to let in any air, any light. It could be that the field has simply drawn the worst of the practitioners. It seems so easy to call yourself “a poet.” There’s very little to do once you’ve assumed your stance. There’s a reason why many people don’t read poetry. The reason is that the stuff is badly and limply done. Perhaps the energetic creators have gone into music or prose or painting, sculpting? At least once in a while in these fields somebody breaks through the stale walls.

ranted. They bad-mouthed about everybody who wasn’t around and there was little doubt in my mind that my turn would come when they were elsewhere. I didn’t feel threatened. What mattered was after they left: their cheap vibes had settled under the rug and upon the window shades and all about and it was sometimes a day or two later until I felt all right again—I mean, my oh my:

quiddled.

To talk nonsense. Be vague or waffle.

Just to let you know I’ve got a new kitten. Male. I need a name. For the kitten, I mean. And there have been some good names. Don’t you think? Like Jeffers. E. E. Cummings. Auden. Stephen Spender. Catullus. Li Po. Villon. Neruda. Blake. Conrad Aiken. And there’s Ezra. Lorca. Millay. I don’t know.

Martin has me on the paintings for War All the Time. I try to tell him that the paintings come from the same place the writing comes from and that I’d rather write. I can’t make him see this. So I sit about drunk squeezing paint tubes onto paper and placing them on the floor and the cats walk over them. I don’t stop them.

In my work, as a writer, I only photograph, in words, what I see. If I write of “sadism” it is because it exists. I didn’t invent it, and if some terrible act occurs in my work it is because such things happen in our lives, I am not on the side of evil, if such a thing as evil abounds. In my writing I do not always agree with what occurs, nor do I linger in the mud for the sheer sake of it. Also, it is curious that people who rail against my work seem to overlook the sections of it which entail joy and love and hope, and there are such sections. My days, my years, my life have seen ups and downs, lights and darknesses. If I wrote only and continually of the “light” and never mentioned the other, then as an artist I would be a liar.

Censorship is the tool of those who have the need to hide actualities from themselves and from others. Their fear is only their inability to face what is real, and I can’t vent any anger against them, I only feel this appalling sadness. Somewhere, in their upbringing, they were shielded against the total facts of our existence. They were only taught to look one way when many ways exist.

Wrote my first novel (Post Office) in 19 nights. I drank beer and scotch and sat around in my shorts.

You know, there is a way of having rancor with style, and there is a way of indulging bitterness with humor but both of these books just made me feel very bad. It’s all right to ravage if your ravage takes courage but if it’s just ravage for the sake of ravage, well, that’s done every day in all of our lives, it happens on the freeways and alleys of our goings and comings and waitings.

For it all, I will always remember reading Ask the Dust, which I still consider the finest novel written in all time, a novel which probably saved my life, for whatever it is worth.

Early on, I wrote too much like Saroyan and Hemingway and a little bit like Sherwood Anderson. Then I began to dislike Saroyan because he failed to alter to conditions and Hemingway because there was no fucking humor, so those dried out of me. Sherwood Anderson, well a lot of him still sticks.

Writing is only the result of what we have become day by day over the years. It’s a god damned fingerprint of self and there it is.

When you write only to get famous you shit it away. I don’t want to make rules but if there is one it is: the only writers who write well are those who must write in order not to go mad.

Don’t try. Don’t work. It’s there. It’s looking right at us, aching to kick out of the closed womb. There’s been too much direction. It’s all free, we needn’t be told. Classes? Classes are for asses. Writing a poem is as easy as beating your meat or drinking a bottle of beer. Look. Here’s one: “flux” mother saw the raccoon, my wife told me. ah, I said. and that was just about the shape of things tonight.

In the center of my brain I still remember that time in Atlanta, repeat it as I might, when I was starving and out of my mind, but maybe in my mind, when I wrote with a pencil stub on the white edges of the newspapers my landowners had placed upon that earthen floor as a rug. Mad? Sure, but good mad, I’d like to think. One doesn’t forget, ever. I

I’m having myself a rife, ripe, rapacious, ripping time. So far, the gods are allowing me this celebration. It’s so strange. But I’ll take it.

But what is the most horrifying thing of all is that the game continues, not only in the same fashion but in a more soulless way through the same greed and fear, and through a practice learned and honed so well that the bigger the liars, the more they will be believed in.

And speaking of Pound, many decades ago I was shacked with a lady and I was a poor provider and how we made it, drinking continually as we did, I am truly amazed at now, although then I didn’t think much about it. Anyhow, in the few non-drinking moments I usually made my way to the library and back. One time I opened the door and stood there with that heavy book in my hand and she looked up from the bed and said, “You got them god damned Cantos again?” “Yes,” I told her, “we can’t fuck all the time.”

dulce et utile, as Horace suggested centuries ago.