My Heroes Have Always Been Poets

NOB HILL--Tomorrow is the last day to catch "Bukowski: Born Into This." Don't take the kids. Not because it is dirty or violent. This is a warning more in the vein of "Momma, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys." I think poets are special people. The reality of poetry is directly connected to the cosmos itself. It is not easy to attempt to capture Truth. The poet is, as Ferlinghetti put it, "constantly risking absurdity and death." It is so easy to be absurd.

Bukowski is a step beyond beat poetry, but he still has aura of "poet as prophet" even if he deals with a pretty grimy reality. There may be several reasons why Buk wrote about whores, drinking, filthy apartments, and sex. Maybe it was a reaction to the ever so clean Eisenhower years...maybe it had to do with feelings of unworthiness from his childhood...maybe it was because the images from that life were so vibrant and left you feeling as if you had been punched in the face. In the midst of this Bukowski searched for a kind of wisdom. And he did it without many of the poetic conventions. In many cases, the poem itself is the only image: no similies, metaphors, rhyme. What you have is reality itself...straight from the bottle.

MaryAnn asked me if I thought alcohol was necessary in order for him to write. This fits with a lot of the mythology that has grown up around him and other creative people. I think most poets use alcohol to quit thinking, to stop that brain, to save it until tomorrow when they will be writing again.

My heroes have always been poets. I read and memorized Robert Louis Stevenson when I was seven. I would recite him from memory at Show and Tell in 2nd grade. They are truly heroic figures. You might have noticed I have links to 2 poets in the right-hand column. Please check them out. Tell them what you think. And if you have a site you want me to consider, let me know.