Various Friedland, Helen (Editor); Bukowski, Charles et al.)

Poetry/LA No. 8 (Spring/Summer 1984)

Los Angeles, CA: Peggor Press, 1984. First Printing. Softcover. (Debritto B1239., p. 322). “I think I learned much about writing when / I read those issues of the Kenyon Review / that came out over 40 years ago / the light of the starving library room / falling across my starving fingers / turning fat full pages full of / the deliberate glory of / rancor / […] / those critics / those spoiled fat gnats / bellicose / were very fine energy things / more fulfilling than my / park bench / [...] I knew that words could / bat the hell out of / anything” (from “HEY, EZRA, LISTEN TO THIS ONE,” p. 14). Started in 1980 by author & editor, Helen Friedland (1916-2012), this issue of Poetry LA — the eighth in the series — features three poems by Beat-&-Beyond cult favorite, Charles Bukowski (1920-1994). The works by Bukowski featured are “HEY, EZRA, LISTEN TO THIS ONE” (quoted above, & addressed, of course, to Ezra Pound (1885-1972) — the controversial American Early-High Modernist, whose epoch-making work as an organizer & theorist is haunted by his inexcusable Anti-Semitism, & catalog of related fascist sympathies). The second work by Buk is his classic “About a Collector of My Works,” — a prototypical narrative from Bukowski in which his own interactions with a given “collector” are epistemically framed & re-staged so as to illustrate the impact of this falsehood, or frailty as it’s embodied by humans & persists across time. Bukowski, of course provides a corrective by the close of the final stanza. We readers, then add it to the existing catalog of beery wisdoms we’ve derived from Bukowski — Literature’s greatest “Dirty Old Man.” The final work, “Truce,” is very reminiscent to the work he was doing in the early 1970s and reminds this reader of the poems that begin the Black Sparrow collection, Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame. Friedland, for her part feathers an enormously interesting & impressively astute short essay into Issue No. 8 at its open. It discusses (or rather, takes on) the Modernist fetishization of the new, and calls instead for an evaluative openness that might allow or encourage poets working on the margins (or ‘against the grain’) to draft older poets of serious value into their world: their life, & their practice. For a full list of contents and contributors, be sure to view the pictures attached to this listing, & don’t hesitate to reach out to us here at TMB if you’ve got any questions (or would like to see a particular work) that’s present in the ToC but not otherwise photographed or quoted. A very significant issue in this always most collectible series, of particular interest to the Bukowski devotee/completist. Trade-Format Softcover Journal; first edition, first printing though not explicated as such at copyright page. In Fine-Very Fine condition with only minute-to-moderate edge-wear to fine-edges of front, back covers & spine-edge; & a few minute (& almost microscopic) instants of some light rubbing &/or light bumping to same; otherwise, pristine & likely closer to “Very Fine” than “Fine,” hence the hyphenated designation. Fine-Very Fine. [Item #7697]

Price: $25.00