THE THIRD IN A SERIES of posthumous collections edited by Abel Debritto (On Writing, On Cats), Charles Bukowski’s On Love is kind of like bible-dipping misogyny. I didn’t need to read the whole thing to tell you that. I could have stopped after “I can feel the great empty mountain of her head” on the first page, or the third, where Bukowski ponders the shallow nature of womankind after a partner he refers to as his “bankroll” kicks him out. Ten or so poems later Bukowski mocks his partner’s passion about ending “discrimination the Bomb segregation,” saying, “I let her go on until finally the talk/wearies me.”
Bukowski lived in a pre-Reagan economy of strong unions and cheap rent. White flight made inner city living affordable. He benefitted from all the advantages discriminatory hiring practices afforded white men. He was allowed to treat his jobs like shit. He was allowed to treat women like shit. After all, nearly 60,000 men his age were dead from the Vietnam War. Bukowski’s writing is like a hypocrisy Cave of Wonders. It’s like a bad relationship chocolate factory. If Dan Savage hadn’t been so busy with middle school right then he could have told Bukowski’s lovers to DTMFA.
And I get the point. Human beings are complicated. Love means a lot of different things. I just get so tired of Bukowski’s perspective—him and his Guy in Your MFA progeny. It’s so boring. Bukowski wastes a good 60 percent of On Love discovering he loves women he deems irrational or idiotic. Near the midpoint, Debritto begins to bring in poems Bukowski wrote for his daughter. Like, awwww, get it? He was a misogynist but now he loves his daughter. So. Bored.
On Love has a chick-lit cover, bright teal with a lipstick kiss on a cocktail napkin like it’s about a sassy divorcée who solves murders (if only!). Its branding is feminine. This is the book Bukowski fans will buy their partners for Valentine’s Day, like I told you I can say cunt. Where’s my award for going down on you? When you get this book, think about what that means about your relationship and the person you’re dating. Then save yourself.
Hell yes.
Steve: “OK, who on the staff hates Bukowski the most? Great…review this!”
what kind of oblivious sluggish critic is this
what kind of oblivious sluggish critic is this?
This anthology does looks awful, but don’t blame Bukowski for that – he’s dead! I’m wondering how much of his work that author has actually read? This is a very cursory analysis of someone who published over 80 titles in their life, and whose career spanned about five decades. Yes the “Women” part of the oeuvre is a bit tiresome, but there’s more context to it than the old “he’s a misogynist” chestnut, which as well worn and superficial as anything the “Guy in Your MFA” has to offer.
Suzette, check out his poems to long-time lover Jane after her death, or The Shower, or his hilarious novels Hollywood, Post Office and Ham on Rye, or anything in Last Night of The Earth Poems – written when he was well-settled into domesticity with the love of his life and his wife and companion of 18 years until he died, Linda. People grow and evolve, and the poems in this book, like any piece in an autobiographical artists body of work, are snapshots in time…