My Correspondence With Charles Bukowski
by Rich Wilkes
In the summer of 1991 I was trying to get in with an underground ‘zine in Los Angeles called HALF-TRUTH (“Only Half the Lies of Other Magazines!”). The ‘zine was run by a cool group of older punkers (real punks from real punk bands dating back to the late ‘70s L.A. scene.) They had published a couple silly articles of mine, nothing too impressive, but I really wanted to impress them. So one day, out of the blue, I proposed to land an interview with Charles Bukowski. Half-Truth editor Jeff Hughart, knowing I was a fearless idiot and that this was a fool’s errand, called my bluff. So I wrote a letter to Black Sparrow Press (Buk’s publisher at the time) and asked for a thru-the-mail exchange with Buk. To spice up the deal, I also asked for a mail order catalogue so I could buy more of their books (super subtle, I know). They sent me back a catalogue and then this:
The poem was really cool. Unpublished, I assumed (at least at the time.) Something they had released exclusively for the 1991 San Francisco Bay Area Book Festival. They said they would forward my request to Bukowski and that they couldn’t promise anything. I figured that would be the last I ever heard about it. Then, a few weeks later, the following letter appeared in my mailbox:
I was floored. Charles Bukowski had taken the time to shoot down my interview request with a written letter! No only that, but he’d DECORATED the letter with a wacky little cartoon drawing! This was BETTER than some stock interview, so I wrote Bukowski back asking if we could publish his rejection letter. I sent him a few issues of the ‘zine as well, so he’d know what he was getting into. Sure enough…
This letter was even better! He was sharing personal details on aging and the writing process, and adding more cartoons (including a bird, a sun and a wine bottle)! A couple months later I sent him the issue where we published his rejection letter. Included in that issue was a comic I wrote about what happened one night at a bar. I figured this would be the end of it, but then this arrived:
Holy shit! He read my bar comic and liked it! And what’s this…? He apologized? He felt bad enough that we didn't get the interview that he submitted a few poems to make us feel better. Two unpublished, unsolicited original poems by Charles Bukowski! Unseen since 1991, here they are:
The first poem, THE MAIL, showed how fortunate I had been to get a response from Bukowski in the first place. It was dumb luck that my letter hadn’t wound up in his trash with all the others! But this wasn’t the end of my history with Bukowski. I had no way of knowing it, but this back and forth would go on for another year and a half, culminating in over 40 pages of raw Bukowski: letters, poems, cartoons, diary entries, book chapters, self-portraits… I even got him to do CD reviews of the RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS and NOFX!
To this day, I STILL can’t believe he spent the time stuffing envelopes and licking stamps to send me this stuff (or that he considered these “submissions,” like anyone in the ‘zine world wouldn’t jump at the chance to publish anything he touched.) Right now I’m still tripping because I just realized that after calling himself a dog, he drew his classic friggin’ dog cartoon at the bottom and named him “BUK.”
And it only gets better from here...
Thanks for reading!
Copyright 2018 by Rich Wilkes
NOTE: the above material was UNPUBLISHED at the time I got it and put it in Half-Truth Magazine (1991). Since then it may have appeared elsewhere (or in different forms,) but I have no idea...
Great stuff. Thanks for publishing this.
they appear to be ordinary citizens unless you really know
So many out there.
I put out a zine in the late 80’s and corresponded back and forth with a bunch of folks covered in Factsheet Five (never occurred to me to write to Bukowski, damn) but the rise of the internet pretty much killed that scene.
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Ahh, the good old days of the 'zine. I guess places like Steemit are the new version. Thanks for the note.
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Ohhhh this is so rad! Thanks for sharing.
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Hey, thank you for reading!
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What a brilliant read and what a trip. Id have spent my days say by the mailbox...Tom Waites next ?
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Ha! I think the only other one I got stuff from (poetry) was Keith Morris from the Circle Jerks. Maybe I'll dig that out next...
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hmmmm circle jerking isnt a popular theme on Steemit lol ;-)
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Hey Rich! Buk's interview/non-interview and the poems are something unique.. this is an article that I would read by itself, steemit or not! There's so much raw truth in The Way. I also enjoyed your "super subtle" strategy.. sometimes in life all we have to do is just ask in the right way.
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You are still awesome and thanks for reading. I'm looking into the finish the story thing you told me about. I finally made it to Discord yesterday and am trying to figure it out!
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Rich let's do this, if you like.. next week #11 I invite you to be the one writing the script for my contest (just short stuff to have fun). This way I can introduce you to the guys and put a link into my contest to your good work for all the participants, so they can follow you. My guest for week #10 script was @improv .. an actor and indeed a cool dude (and I love this format of collaborative writing) ✌️
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Hey that sounds great! Just let me know what to do.
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Awesome! I will send you my e-mail now, check your steemit wallet for the address. Before next Tuesday 8th just drop me a short script (you're free to write what you prefer). The game is that you start a story and the guys finish it and I reward the best. I really want to see in what madness you're going to drive them!
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Lovely story and so exciting, I like the human-ness of it. I came across you through @nathen007 who included you in his followfriday post. Look forward to more!
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Cool, thanks for letting me know about followfriday. That is a really cool thing to do. Enjoyed your story about the Toilet Twinning!
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Arsenal, though!
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Grrrr
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Thanks for sharing this gold/bitcoin! You have me looking out for the next lot!
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