Charles Bukowski

To the Editor:

David Orr’s column On Poetry (Feb. 24) may be right about alcoholism and the dangers of drunk driving, but Orr’s attempted ticketing of Charles Bukowski would have greatly amused the poet. The opinions of respectable literary critics were of zero interest to him, but the fact that someone at The New York Times is attacking him 25 years after his death is evidence that he is having the last laugh. That his current publisher should exploit his popularity by reissuing much of his prodigious output is mere marketing.

Bukowski’s entire project as a writer was in opposition or indifference to the standards of poetry deemed worthy of prestigious publications. He published in obscure little magazines and in John Martin’s independent Black Sparrow Press. He thrived in those marginal places and was embraced by countless readers bored with most of what passed for accomplished verse. His writing will outlast the complaints of scandalized mandarins.

STEPHEN KESSLER

SANTA CRUZ, CALIF.

♦

To the Editor:

David Orr writes eloquent, amusing and circuitously disapproving commentary on the retching doggerel by Charles Bukowski, whose reputation far exceeds his literary accomplishments. I agree with almost everything Orr describes so well, and his placement of Bukowski’s modus operandi within a certain tradition — however dishonorable — is useful, up to a point.

But I do wish Orr had simply said more bluntly what needs to be said: that Bukowski remains a thoroughly self-indulgent and odious degenerate whose drunken excursions into the world of poetry were grotesque abuses of the literary form. That we have publishers mining the dregs of his work for another book because he has this roguish reputation further degrades serious literature and insults those who care about poetry of real merit.