Bukowski, Burroughs, and Ginsberg

For the Influence and Role Model Contest

Picture it. Go ahead, close your eyes, and picture it. A girl...looks don't matter, but she's alone in this new town. She doesn't have friends yet...that won't happen for a few months from now...but she's content in her silence. She has a journal that she writes in all the time. Her therapist told her that writing in it is a safe way to purge the anger and sadness that rolls under her skin like an ocen at high tide.

This girl, she's sitting on the concrete steps in her school, writing happily away, when someone approaches her and asks if she knows who Allen Ginsberg is. The girl didn't know the name, so she goes to the library and finds a copy of Pocket Poems.

 

Flash forward 16 years....

 

 

She's grown up, out of high school, and she's lived a life that has had more downs than a roller coaster. Through it all though, she's had Ginsberg next to her. He taught her that it's okay to be in the gutter. The stars still shine just as bright, he told her that everyone's heart has been broken...broken hearts aren't anything new at all. Ginsberg taught her how to play with sounds, with words...he taught her how to find her voice in a sea of millions. The anger still flowed, the sadness still permeated, setting a crooked smile on her face, but she knows...

 

Bukowski came along by accident. A friend of hers says..."hey, you'd like him. Read this..." The title is fuzzy...but she fell in love with his hard words, hard life, his booze and his women. She isn't supposed to like him, he's misogynistic, a hard drinker..but she doesn't care. She sees that he wasn't afraid to say it like it is. The world deals a hard hand, but it's up to you to deal with it accordingly. She could be the barfly...or she could be the one living....

 

Burroughs. Ah....William Burroughs...palled around with Ginsberg once upon a time. He shined a light through her drug addled past, cut the "but Im an addict" bullshit. He played with the visuals, he said...okay. Heres the world. Now, let's flip it on it's head, shall we?

 

She took all three...melded them to her....she holds them dear and near to her heart. No one alive, breathing, in her life could have such a profound effect. She loves her friends, but she learned how to love, how to laugh, how to live through three dead writers she will never meet.

Reviews

[Tara]

I love this...I'd just add Kerouac to the title. Women are NOT supposed to like Bukowski but like you say, it's his way of taking the s****y part of life and telling it like it is, straight up and dirty. You should read "The Hippos were boiled in their Tanks" if you haven't already..a cool bit of pre-fame writing.

[Vanesa Markovic]

I love this, and I find myself in what has been written.
I too am a lover of Bukowski, as are many women I know.
-I wouldn't label him a misogynist, the man wasn't a fan of people in general, be they women or be they men.
However, one thing the man did know how to do, and do well, was love women, in his OWN way.
Lydia, for example, in Women.
She was insane, complete chaos, yet, no matter the flaws, Hank loved her.
Bukowski loved her. Hell, just reading of her, we grow to love her.
I don't believe a misogynist could ever write of women like that.
I'm getting FAR off topic, I apologize.
That was just my 2 cents...
Again, I loved this.
Brilliant.

[Doctor JKC]

My hand, wrist, and elbow veins felt like a sausage factory.
I almost became too much like Lou Reed and died.

Bukowski taught me honesty is the only thing you own.
I almost became too much like him and died, but rallied just
fine after a few years of a bad cough and dissolution.

Burroughs expanded my way of doing something if I
choose go into the surreal and forget the rules.
I love that guy. An honest junkie and damn good writer.

I respect Ginsberg when he was at his best, which was short.
Then when I met him after a show on 8th Street in the
East Village around 1978, that I had a piece featured in,
he asked me to join his "workshop." I was one of the original
punks at the time and said fine. He gave me an address and said
I could pay the fee, which was a few hundred dollars (I don't recall
just how much.) I asked him why he was charging for art and he said
everyone had to make money. So I said if you obviously have money
why was not spend 2 dollars on some deodorant because you stink of
body odor? He said something unintelligible behind his foul beard,
which I'm sure hosted many a life-form, and I told him to f**k off.
His time had gone and he turned to teaching because he was hard
pressed to write a lick anymore. Like Kerouac who died at his mommies
house a few blocks away from where it sit just now of rampant alcohol abuse. Phil Ochs ( one of the best writer-singers ever) burnt
out and hanged himself about 20 blocks from where I sit just now, too.
Said the writing faucet was running cold so he killed himself. Too simple of course.
The vast majority of serious have severe disorders, mainly BPD, and some of the ones who live have learned to turn it to an advantage. That's one of the tricks
of counseling. Most of them need a drug to fuel creativity and a good doctor will work with that and find a way to moderate it's use and not go all NA/AA on them.
That's a tried and failed path.
Hugs, Jack

All of these 3 artists detested each other

[bob, small b. aka invs]

for me it was e.e. cummings, lawrence ferlinghetti and richard brautigan.

[Narnie]

I think my list is longer but I'm with you in sentiment, totally. I'm thankful that you found your voice in a sea of millions. It is a mighty fine voice.

[cest la vie]

Sometimes all it takes is a name, song, or some other oddity to completely change the course of our lives.
In your case, three wonderful writers re-set your compass.
This is written very well, and you have excellent writing skills.. I say keep writing and give the men a run for their money:-)

[.]

I put Bukowski down to read this...a fine reward

[Ed Hart]

what a very nice piece...thank you for the telling, you've certainly lived it, my friend...Ed