The poems of Charles Bukowski arose from the gutters of society, venting his personal experiences with a dark, but often humorous narrative. Despite his disgust towards social conformity and the American government, Bukowski is still generally considered an iconic figure in American literature. A contradiction to Bukowski’s anti-American opinions is made by his emphasis on the values of freedom and independence in his poems: yellow cab, I have shit stains in my underwear too, and quiet clean girls in gingham dresses. These poems reinforce Bukowski as a cynical critic of the bourgeois society, often targeting women; it would be foolish to blind ones opinion on whether he was anti-American or not, as such generalizations rarely fit an individual perfectly. Why Charles Bukowski criticizes and mocks conformed societies can be uncovered through the analysis of his life.
Charles Bukowski (1920-1994) was born in post-World War I Germany, but soon after immigrated to America with his German mother and abusive American father (Frost, 2002). Bukowski was isolated in youth, contracting blood poisoning which caused severe acne, permanently scarring his face. According to Bukowski, his father severely beat him to vent out his own personal depression; this caused him to despise both his father and also his mother because she never tried to stop the beatings. Bukowski was introduced to a lifelong friend, alcohol, early in his adolescence (Frost, 2002). Shunned by his peers because of his appearance and helplessly beaten by his father, these events probably rooted his self-reliance and disdain towards conformity in his writing life. Bukowski attended college in Los Angeles, but dropped out leading to decade long period as an alcoholic dri...
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...atively. Isolated his whole life, Bukowski’s work incorporates vulgar humor to narrate his miserable and pathetic experiences.
Works Cited
Bukowski, Charles, “I have shit stains on my underwear too” Love is a Dog from Hell / Poems 1974-1977. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers Inc. 1977. 209. Print.
Bukowski, Charles, “quiet clean girls in gingham dresses…” Love is a Dog from Hell / Poems 1974-1977. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers Inc. 1977. 74-75. Print.
Bukowski, Charles, “yellow cab” Love is a Dog from Hell / Poems 1974-1977. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers Inc. 1977. 150-151. Print.
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Our world is not a pleasant one. Our everyday lives are punctured with graphic images of sex, violence and apathy. Unfortunately, people tend to ignore the holes in the social fabric all around them. As Bukowski wrote the poems that were compiled into Betting on the Muse, he realized this, and incorporated it into his poetry. In his narrative works he creates a living, breathing world. He tends to concentrate on the low points of life, though. The world is a dark one, where personal rotting begins with an all-too-early maturation. Bukowski's collection should be read by those who want to experience the lives of people in a decaying, violent world.
Burns, Robert. “To A Mouse.” Poets.org. The Academy of American Poets, Inc., n.d. Web. 14
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Canine tales are becoming an ever-more-popular medium for expression, says Garber: “Just as the pathos of human love and loss is most effectively retold, in modern stories, through the vehicle of the steadfastly loyal and loving dog, so the human hero has increasingly been displaced and replaced by the canine one” (44). The spotlight has been shifted from the larger-than-life human to the humble family pet and his canine brethren. Stories that feature a dog rather than a person are able to more convey a deeper sense of meaning, establishing their...
In poetry, the speaker is not necessarily the author but is the voice of the poem that conveys his or her situations or emotions. In the beginning of the poem, the speaker meets her ex lover “after all these years” (Kizer line 1). Kizer uses an extended metaphor of the speaker’s inner self as a dog, more specifically, a female dog, which explains the title, “Bitch”. The speaker’s inner bitch reveals emotions of being wounded, furious, and affectionate towards her former lover all at once. The speaker is miserable in how she has to hold back the dog. She says, “as I drag you off by the scruff” (Line 33). This gives the reader the imagery of a dog being pulled away from something the dog aspired to do, illustrating the miserable and wounded tone. The speaker is
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The book starts with Blumberg’s personal experiences with his dogs and moves onto several examples from other famous p...
Richardson, Mark. The Ordeal of Robert Frost: The Poet and His Poetics. Urbana: University of Illinois, 1997. Print.