CHARLES BUKOWSKI – The Unfitted Story Teller

On August 16^th 1920 a young boy was born in the German city of Andernuch.  His name was Henry Charles Bukowski.

In the age of two his family moved to Los Angeles United States

Born in a very weird family with an extremely rough discipline father, whom young Charles was afraid of as he usually beat his son and bullied him, young Charles was a frightened little boy with no self confidence forced to obey the strict rules of his father. 

As shy he was often lost into his own world writing down his thoughts and feelings. Writing was his first love and he started following this passion.  But though he loved his talent, his mother did not., After finishing school his decision was to go to college- as he did- and study literature and become a writer and a journalist. He wrote every single day, but as soon as his mother found out that her son was writing stories, she threw his scripts away as she thought that was a stupid habit.  His mother's action was something that made young Charles to be devostated about.

 Devastated as he was from the bad treatment from his parents towards him, he decided to leave his home and headed to Atlanta city. He found a small cabin and decided to stay  there. He became a wanderer and eated only chocolates in order to survive. But as time went by and he had no money in his pockets and no food  or job to survive, he decided to return back home to his family, That was something he would often do in the following years of his early life, when he would have nowhere else to go to.

In the start of the second world war, Charles was forced by his friends and family to participate to the war something that he did not feel like, so he left away and started once again to live as a homeless wanderer. On August 1944 he was declared as “uncapable to do his military obligation”.

So, in the age of 24 he moved to New York where he wrote his first poem, “Aftermath of a Lengthy Rejection Slip» which he published in "Story Magazine". 

As he felt unfitted in New York he once again left away in the search of more hospitable places.  

Two years later, another of his stories was published in "Portfolio III". The title was “20 Tanks From Kasseldown", 

But Bukowski was very disappointed about the slow procedure of his work’s publication so he decided to quit writing. 

Ten years went by with no writing at all. 
Once again, he became a wanderer where he visited a lot of cities and finally based in Los Angeles. He tried various and weird jobs in order to make a living and slept in cheap motels. In 1955 he was hospitalized suffering from very bad stomach ulcer. He managed to survive. As soon as he got out of the hospital, he started writing poems.

His first poems' collection "Flower, Fist and Bestial Wail"  was published on 1959. 

Sometime later Jon Edgar Webb- who was publishing the magazine “The Outsider”- was impressed by Bukowski’s work and started publishing them. He also gave him the title “Outsider of the Year” in one of his magazine covers.

Bukowski started to gain reputation as an outsider and underground poet. He had a column to the “Open City” newspaper of Los Angeles with the title “Notes from a dirty old man". 

 His stories were referring to underground people as hookers, thieves, homeless.”. The stories were later published in a book.

In 1969 John Martin of "Black Sparrow Press", offers him 100 dollars for the rest of his life  in order to just  write . So, he did!

 The work of Charles Bukowski is biographical, most of the times referring to his brutal father, his alcoholism and all the experiences he gained during the decade where he lived as a wanderer and a homeless underground man.

The abandonment, the poverty, the pain, all of these feelings have been mentioned to the most of his work. People destroyed while there was not any chance to be given to their lives or where not capable of using this chance. Alcoholic people, hookers, homeless, who live the present moment without expecting anything for tomorrow.

His work was not recognized by the Academic Critics which they have not given any attention to it, although simple people did in period of time. 

Since his death on March 9^th 1994 a lot of critics and opinions were written regarding his job.

Jean-Paul Sartre said that he was the greatest poet of USA. Maybe this would mean something to his “haters”.

He was buried in Green Hills Memorial Park Los Angeles.

His burial stone says “DON’T TRY” which means by his own words:

"Somebody asked me: "What do you do? How do you write, create?" You don't, I told them. You don't try. That's very important: not to try, either for Cadillacs, creation or immortality. You wait, and if nothing happens, you wait some more. It's like a bug high on the wall. You wait for it to come to you. When it gets close enough you reach out, slap out and kill it. Or if you like its looks, you make a pet out of it."

Charles Bukowski

                                             "The Genius of the Crowd" by C.Bukowski