(hey it’s been awhile! A lot has been going on with the Renaissance & my forthcoming collection Last Of The Hardcore. If you want to keep up with what I’m doing follow me on instagram @damianrucci and if you dig what we’re doing and want to support the Renaissance the link is here Here’s a short little essay.
Now I’m sure that with a title like this every Bukowski bro or proud card carrying member of the Tom Waits Parade, those damned whiskey poets— are up in arms ready to rip me limb from limb thinking this is about to be some long winded take down of their beloved Buk. That perhaps with all the shit I talk on the internet I possess the hubris to argue on a Thursday morning that I am a better poet than ol’ Henry Chinaski— nahhhhhh man. It’s bigger than all of that. Without a doubt, the king of underground literature was one of the most impactful poets in America in the 20th century. His dedication to indie literature was admirable and it begat generations of small press poets, presses, and mags. He knocked out some pretty undeniable good poems (come on, Bluebird is possibly the best poem on masculinity ever), had despicable views towards women (that Swedish interview isn’t art jack, it’s straight domestic violence) and romanticized his life to a point that it has burrowed into the minds of so many male poets even to this very day.
And that’s the fucking problem.
Strewn all across the country tucked away in small poetry open mics you can find these wannabe Bukowskis scribbling in their notebooks about betting at the racetrack, ‘whores’, whiskey drinking and why society doesn’t understand their genius. If you’re brave enough, I suggest wading into the deep waters of the poetry groups on Facebook — that’s where you’ll find one of the greatest strongholds of the Bukowski bros, deep writing poems about meeting women at the bar and blowing your last chunk of change gambling on horses. It’s worse than any circle jerk you could possibly imagine because at least with those you know someone is at least going to get off — there’s no getting off among those wayward whiskey weirdos. It’s strange,
It’s 2023 bro. You’re not betting on the fucking horses. You have probably never even seen a horse in real life— who the hell are you kidding?
But Then It Had Me Really Thinking
Isn’t it time for us to pave our own way? When I see these folks get hung up in the shadow of a man who lived in a particular place in time it’s bewildering to every one of my senses. You can’t be Bukowski. You can’t be Ginsberg. Or Kerouac. Or any one who has lived before you because you’re not them. You’re you. The realm of art and especially poesy is not a monolith or a succession of a specific lineage but a broad collaboration of the human spirit. Individuals make art and that art whether it has exploded in pop culture or only been echoed in the basements of the avante-garde has an effect on the people who experience it and thus influences their own. Like culture it is forever evolving and ebbing and flowing with each new voice who puts forth.
A poet is a series of influences mixed in with the culture and environmental factors of their place in time — so riddle me this batman, in what mathematical probability can anyone today write in the same manner as someone born in 1920? It’s ridiculous. It’s a betrayal of your own individuality and promise.
The myths that were born of the poets of the 20th century are so big and bold that they still cast a wide shadow over the landscape today. But I think it’s high time we break free of all that and carve our own trajectories.
Tell the stories of now. Write the poems of now. Stop idolizing the adventures of men who died before you were born and instead embark on your own! Live a life worth writing about. Read new poets (not just the pantheon of old white dudes) and write something that is profoundly you! Because only you can do that.
But please for the love of all that is holy, don’t write another Bukowski poem.
Much love I’ll write you again next week,
Damian
Maybe you'll get around to answering my comment when you're done disabusing yourself of clichéd rites of passage? Bukowski shit bigger than you. You're soft as slime.
Keep bleeding,
Jim Trainer, Pissing In The Press Pool
https://jimtrainer.substack.com/