Bukowski

Nevertheless, in yet anotherperverse twist ofevents, despite the
excitement caused byhisfirst appearance in Evergreen Review, Bukowski
wouldcriticize theeditors’decision to placehispoem in thefinal pages
of themagazine, as if it were aminor piece. According to the letter to
Norse, hereceived theissue withhispoem on December 1, 1967, and,barely
a week later, in a “Notes of a Dirty Old Man” columnpublished in Open
City, hecomplained bitterly: “in the Dec.issue ofEvergreen there is a
smallpoem by one Charles Bukowski far in the back pages, and all through
themagazine there is aninterview of Leroi Jones,poems of Leroi Jones … I
rememberedhimwhen we werebothscratching to get our poetry into the
littlemagazines” (“Notes” 10). The fact that Leroi Jones, later Amiri
Baraka, hadrejected Bukowski’ssubmissionswhen he was
editingYugen and Floating Bear in the late 50s andearly 60s, mightaccount
forhis resentful tone. This episode isstrikinglysimilar to the
disappointment that overcame Bukowskiwhen he learned that Whit Burnett had
printedhisfirst short-storyever in the “end pages” of Story in
1944.12Bitterness and disappointments notwithstanding, Evergreen
Review would be a pivotalperiodicalboth inpromoting Bukowski’s work and
in consolidatinghisgrowingpopularity. Asecondpoem, “Even the Sun Was
Afraid,” waspublished in the February 1969issue; E. V. Griffith,who had
released Bukowski’sfirstchapbook in 1960, Flower, Fist and Bestial Wail,
andwho hadalsoprinted several ofhispoems in the “little” Hearse, would
exultantly exclaim after reading thatpoem: “Finally! And belatedly! Ihave
been wonderingwhen, ifever, [Evergreen Review] would discoveryou. I
still think you are the bestdamned poet Hearseeverpublished” (Davidson,
10 Feb. 1969). In September of that year, themagazine would run a long
short-storywhere Bukowski somewhat cruellyrecountedhis involvement in
John Bryan’salternative newspaper Open City,aptly titled “The Birth,
Life, and Death of an Underground Newspaper,” forwhich he was paid 330
dollars. Evergreen Review not onlybrought about amuch-neededexposure due
toits largecirculation, butalso amoresubstantial payment than the
customary contributor’s copies of the “littles.” Ariotouslyfunny
short-story titled “The Day We Talked about James Thurber,”where Bukowski
stoically and comically impersonated a French poetfriend ofhis,graced
the January 1970issue. Thepoem “Soup, Cosmos and Tears,”which Bukowski
favored duringhisfirst poetry readings inearly 1970, washislast
appearance in Evergreen Review in June 1970.13Withthe exception of “Men’s
Crapper” —which had nonethelesspreviously appeared in alittlemagazine-
all Bukowski’s contributions to Evergreen Reviewhave been duly collected.
Black Sparrow Presspublished thepoems “Even the Sun Was Afraid” and
“Soup, Cosmos and Tears,”while City Lights reprinted thetwo short-stories
in Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions and General Tales of Ordinary
Madness in 1972; the story “The Day We Talked about James Thurber” seemed
to beespeciallypopular as it wasprinted in the Germanmagazine Twen in
April 1971, and it was later collected in theanthology Evergreen Review
Reader (1998). The fact that Bukowski’s work was championed by Evergreen
Review, one of thekeyperiodicals to come intolife in the yearspreceding
theliteraryexplosion of the 60s, and thathis contributions to the
magazine wereeventually collected byprestigioussmallpresses such as
Black Sparrow Press and City Lights, unquestionably attests to the
increasinginterest inhisliterary output and itdefinitelyaccounts for
thepopularity that Bukowskiachieved in American lettersfrom the late 60s
onwards.