Today’s is the birthday of Henry Charles Bukowski (August 16, 1920 – March 9, 1994).

He “was a German-American poet, novelist, and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural, and economic ambience of his adopted home city of Los Angeles. Bukowski’s work addresses the ordinary lives of poor Americans, the act of writing, alcohol, relationships with women, and the drudgery of work. The FBI kept a file on him as a result of his column Notes of a Dirty Old Man in the LA underground newspaper Open City.

Bukowski published extensively in small literary magazines and with small presses beginning in the early 1940s and continuing on through the early 1990s. He wrote thousands of poems, hundreds of short stories and six novels, eventually publishing over sixty books during the course of his career. Some of these works include his Poems Written Before Jumping Out of an 8 Story Window, published by his friend and fellow poet Charles Potts, and better-known works such as Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame. These poems and stories were later republished by John Martin’s Black Sparrow Press (now HarperCollins/Ecco Press) as collected volumes of his work. As noted by one reviewer, “Bukowski continued to be, thanks to his antics and deliberate clownish performances, the king of the underground and the epitome of the littles in the ensuing decades, stressing his loyalty to those small press editors who had first championed his work and consolidating his presence in new ventures such as the New York Quarterly, Chiron Review, or Slipstream.”

In 1986, Time called Bukowski a “laureate of American lowlife”. Regarding his enduring popular appeal, Adam Kirsch of The New Yorker wrote, “the secret of Bukowski’s appeal … [is that] he combines the confessional poet’s promise of intimacy with the larger-than-life aplomb of a pulp-fiction hero.”

During his lifetime, Bukowski received little attention from academic critics in the United States, but was better received in Europe, particularly the UK, and especially Germany, where he was born. Since his death in March 1994, Bukowski has been the subject of a number of critical articles and books about both his life and writings.

He wrote about his drinking quite a bit in poems, short stories and in legend. Below is one of his more memorable quotes:

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. Drinking was a favorite topic of Bukowski and his writings on the subject were collected into a single volume entitled “Charles Bukowski On Drinking” in 2019. Here’s a few gems from that volume:

From “Charles Bukowski Answers 10 Easy Questions”

“Question: What would you say is the best brand of American beer on the market today?

Bukowski: Well, that’s a bit difficult. Miller’s is the easiest on my system but each new batch of Miller’s seems to taste a bit worse. Something is going on there that I don’t like. I seem to be gradually going over to Schlitz. And I prefer beer in the bottle. Beer in the can definitely gives off a metallic taste. Cans are for the convenience of storekeepers and breweries. Whenever I see a man drinking out of a can I think, “now there is a damn fool.” Also, bottled beer should be in a brown bottle. Miller again errs in putting the stuff into a white bottle. Beer should be protected both from metal and from light.

Of course, if you have the money, it’s best to go up the scale and get the more expensive beers, imported or better-made American. Instead of a dollar 35 you have to go a dollar 75 or 2 and quarter and up. The taste is immediately noticeable. And you can drink more with less hangover. Most ordinary American beer is almost poison, especially the stuff that comes out of the spigots at racetracks. This beer actually stinks, I mean, to the nose. If you must buy a beer at the racetrack it is best to let it sit for 5 minutes before drinking it. There is something about the oxygen getting in there that removes some of the stink. The stuff is simply green.

Beer was much better before World War 2. It had tang and was filled with sharp little bubbles. It’s wash now, strictly flat. You just do the best you can with it.

Beer is better to write with and talk with than whiskey. You can go longer and make more sense. Of course, much depends upon the talker and the writer. But beer is fattening, plenty, and it lessens the sex drive, I mean, both the day you are drinking it and the day after. Heavy drinking and heavy loving seldom go hand in hand after the age of 35. I’d say a good chilled wine is the best way out and it should be drank slowly after a meal, with just perhaps a small glass before eating.

Heavy drinking is a substitute for companionship and it’s a substitute for suicide. It’s a secondary way of life. I dislike drunks but I do suppose I take a little drink now and then myself. Amen.”

brewed and filled by … (1964)

“everything
in my beercan hand
is sad,
the dirt is even
sad
under my fingernails,
and this hand
is like the hand of a
machine
and yet
it is not—
it curves itself completely
(an effort containing magic)
around the
beercan
in a movement the same as
roots
pounding a gladiola
up into the sun of air,
and the beer
goes into me.”

beerbottle (1974)

“a very miraculous thing just happened:
my beerbottle flipped over backwards
and landed on its bottom on the floor,
and I have set it upon the table to foam down,
but the photos were not so lucky today
and there is a small slit along the leather
of my left shoe, but it’s all very simple:
we cannot acquire too much: there are laws
we know nothing of, all manner of nudges
set us to burning or freezing; what sets
the blackbird in the cat’s mouth
is not for us to say, or why some men
are jailed like pet squirrels
while others nuzzle in enormous breasts
through endless nights—this is the
task and the terror, and we are not
taught why. still, it’s lucky the bottle
landed straightside up, and although
I have one of wine and one of whiskey,
this forsooths, somehow, a good night,
and perhaps tomorrow my nose will be longer:
new shoes, less rain, more poems.”

The Bukowski Tapes (1985)

“I think a man can keep on drinking for centuries, he’ll never die; especially wine and beer . . . I like drunkards, because drunkards, they come out of it, and they’re sick and they spring back, they spring back and forth . . . If you gotta be anything, be an alcoholic. If I hadn’t been a drunkard, I probably would have committed suicide long ago. You know, working the factories, the eight hour job. The slums. The streets. You work a god damn lousy job. You come home at night, you’re tired. What are you gonna do, go to a movie? Turn on your radio in a three dollar a week room? Or are you gonna rest up and wait for the job the next day, for $1.75 an hour? Hell, no! You’re gonna get a bottle of whiskey and drink it. And go down to a bar and maybe get in a fist fight. And meet some bitch, something’s going on. Then you go to work the next day, and do your simple little things, right? . . . Alcohol gives you the release of the dream without the deadness of drugs. You can come back down. You have your hangover to face. That’s the tough part. You get over it, you do your job. You come back. You drink again. I’m all for alcohol. It’s the thing.”

beer (1976)

“I don’t know how many bottles of beer
I have drunk while waiting for things
to get better.
I don’t know how much wine and whiskey
and beer
mostly beer
I have drunk after
splits with women—
waiting
for the phone to ring
waiting for the sound of footsteps,
and the phone never rings
until much later
and the footsteps never arrive
until much later
when my stomach is coming up
out of my mouth
they arrive as fresh as spring flowers:
‘what the hell have you done to yourself?
it will be 3 days before you can fuck me!’

the female is durable
she lives seven and one half years longer
than a man, and she drinks very little beer
because she knows it’s bad for the
figure.

while we are going mad
they are out
dancing and laughing
with horny cowboys.

well, there’s beer
sacks and sacks of empty beer bottles
and when you pick them up
the bottles fall through the wet bottom
of the paper sacks
rolling
clanking
spilling grey wet ash
and stale beer,
or the sacks fall over at 4 A.M.
in the morning
making the only sound in your life.

beer
rivers and seas of beer
beer beer beer
the radio singing love
songs
as the phone remains silent
and the walls stand
straight up and down
the beer is all there is.”