- By Mrmiscellanious (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
- NOT PICTURED: Charles Bukowski’s shot-up, runover, miraculously unbreakable cat.
The Guardian broke the news today that a new collection of cat-related poems from Charles Bukowski (yep) is headed your way. The volume, which really and truly is called On Cats, will reveal Bukowski’s “gentler side,” says the Guardian. But wait! This isn’t really news. True Bukowski fans (of which I am not one, because I ONLY like his cat poems) know that Bukowski’s always had some affection for cats. He maybe even liked them more than people? I dunno. What I DO know is that Bukowski wrote a poem about a dear cat of his, called “The History of One Tough Motherfucker.” It is my favorite Bukowski poem, no contest, because a) the titular motherfucker is AN ACTUAL CAT, and b) it brims with genuine affection for the mangiest animal. Bukowski totally identified with that cat. But while, yes, it’s nice that Bukowski had a heart, “One Tough Motherfucker” also just shows that he could make adopting a stray cat into weird, great poetry. He had range. A highlight (you can read the whole thing here, if you’re bored):
and now sometimes I’m interviewed, they want to hear about
life and literature and I get drunk and hold up my cross-eyed,
shot, runover de-tailed cat and I say,”look, look
at this!”
but they don’t understand, they say something like,”you
say you’ve been influenced by Celine?”
“no,” I hold the cat up,”by what happens, by
things like this, by this, by this!”
I shake the cat, hold him up in
the smoky and drunken light, he’s relaxed he knows…
it’s then that the interviews end
although I am proud sometimes when I see the pictures
later and there I am and there is the cat and we are photo-
graphed together.
he too knows it’s bullshit but that somehow it all helps.
Bukowski also happened to be one of our more raging misogynists of poetry*—he once said, “If I write badly about blacks, homosexuals and women it is because those who I met were that.” So that sucks. But at least when it came to cats, he had the right idea.
*This is really saying something, especially in a literary climate that still has a lot of work to do.
To be fair, here’s the rest of that quote: “There are many ‘bads’ – bad dogs, bad censorship; there are even ‘bad’ white males. Only when you write about ‘bad’ white males they don’t complain about it. And need I say that there are ‘good’ blacks, ‘good’ homosexuals and ‘good’ women?”
Doesn’t mean he wasn’t a misogynist, but that’s not the best example to cite. Especially taking the first sentence out of context like that.
An interesting perspective, should one be open to such a thing: http://becauseiamawoman.tumblr.com/post/72…