Portions from a Wine-Stained Notebook: Uncollected Stories and Essays, 1944-1990

by Charles Bukowski, David Calonne (Editor)

Overview

Important, uncollected work from one of the most infamous, over-the-top writers of American literature.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780872864924
Publisher:	City Lights Books
Publication date:	09/01/2008
Pages:	300
Product dimensions:	8.94(w) x 10.88(h) x 0.79(d)

About the Author

Charles Bukowski was born in Andernach, Germany in 1920 and brought to Los Angeles at age three. Using the city as a backdrop for his work, Bukowski wrote prolifically, publishing over fifty volumes of poetry and prose. He died in San Pedro, California on March 9, 1994. His books are widely translated and posthumous volumes continue to appear. David Calonne is the editor of a previous book of uncollected Bukowski, Portions from a Wine-Stained Notebook, as well as a volume of interviews, Charles Bukowski: Sunshine Here I Am. He presently teaches at East Michigan University.

Date of Birth:

August 16, 1920

Date of Death:

March 9, 1994

Place of Birth:

Andernach, Germany

Place of Death:

San Pedro, California

Education:

Los Angeles City College, 2 years

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments     IX
Introduction     XI
Aftermath of a Lengthy Rejection Slip     1
20 Tanks from Kasseldown     11
Hard Without Music     15
Jiace: Editors Write     19
Portions from a Wine-Stained Notebook     20
A Rambling Essay on Poetics and the Bleeding Life Written While Drinking a Six-Pack (Tall)     33
In Defense of a Certain Type of Poetry, a Certain Type of Life, a Certain Type of Blood-Filled Creature who Will Someday Die     41
Artaud Anthology     49
An Old Drunk who Ran Out of Luck     54
Notes of a Dirty Old Man     57
Untitled Essay in A Tribute to Jim Lowell     61
Notes of a Dirty Old Man     63
The Night Nobody Believed I was Allen Ginsberg     70
Should We Burn Uncle Sam's Ass?     78
The Silver Christ of Santa Fe     82
Dirty Old Man Confesses     87
Reading and Breeding for Kenneth     105
The L.A. Scene     111
Notes on the Life of an Aged Poet     121
Upon the Mathematics of the Breath and the Way     128
Notes of a Dirty Old Man     135
Notes of a Dirty Old Man     141
Notes of a Dirty Old Man     148
Unpublished Foreword to William Wantling's 7 on Style     151
Jaggernaut     156
Picking the Horses     162
Workout     169
The Way it Happened     181
Just Passing Time     188
Distractions in the Literary Life     197
I Meet the Master     205
Charles Bukowski's Los Angeles for Li Po     230
Looking Back at a Big One     231
Another Portfolio     234
The Other     236
Basic Training     249
Sources     253
About the Author and Editor     255

What People are Saying About This

Jerry Stahl

Portions from a Wine-Stained Notebook is as vivid, bad-ass, screamingly funny, and gutter-angelic as the man himself. (Jerry Stahl, author of Permanent Midnight, Perv, Plainclothes Naked, and I, Fatty.)

John Martin

Finally...David Calonne has unearthed Portions...the previously missing link in Bukowski's oeuvre that suddenly makes everything come clear. (John Martin, Black Sparrow Press)

Eileen Myles

He [Bukowski] wrote American. When it meant something good. Fucked up, male, but incredibly true. In a distinct rhythm. (Eileen Myles, author of Sorry, Tree and Cool for You)

Editorial Reviews

"Bukowski's strength is in the sheer bulk of his contents, the virulent anecdotal sprawl, the melodic spleen without the fetor of the parlor or the classroom, as if he were writing while straddling a cement wall or sitting on a bar stool, the seat of which is made of thorns."—Jim Harrison, NY Times, 2007

"It features a wealth of previously uncollected Bukowski material, including his first published short stories, book reviews, essays on literature, U.S. politics, his writing craft, biographical accounts, entries from his famous NOTES of a DIRTY OLD MAN newspaper column, tips on how to win at the racetrack and even a review of a Rolling Stones concert. David Stephen Calonne provides a lucid and highly learned introduction to the book. . . . No Bukophile should miss out on this book."—Bold Monkey

From the Publisher

[Bukowski] could be generous and mean-spirited, heroic and defensive, spot-on and slanted, but he became the world-class writer he had set out to be; he has joined the permanent anti-canon or shadow-canon whose denizens had shown him the way. Today the frequent allusions to him in both popular and mainstream culture tend more to respect than mockery. If scholarship has lagged, this book would indicate that this situation is changing.
— Resources for American Literary Study

Gerald Locklin

Portions from a Wine-Stained Notebook is mightily essential reading for all Bukowski fans, old and new.

Beat Scene 56

The newly released 'Portions from a Wine-Stained Notebook' pulls together as-yet uncollected essays and stories by Charles Bukowski, written from 1944-1990. Some were published in places like 'Rolling Stone'; others showed up in fleeting literary journals and porn mags. The selections include the first of his 'Notes From a Dirty Old Man,' a series that appeared in multiple magazines, and the first short story he published, which pointed out his lack of prior publication: 'Aftermath of a Lengthy Rejection Slip.'

Los Angeles Times' "Jacket Copy" Blog

This is a valuable addition to the expanding, some might say morbidly obese, bulk of posthumous Bukowski titles. It's not just another agglomeration of odds and soda, unfinished drafts, and scraps that weren't good enough to publish the first time around, flaws that characterized his recent output and which even his most fervent acolytes must realize. No, Portions from a Wine-Stained Notebook is a different animal. . . . This collection is also unique in that it offers a glimpse of Bukowski as nonfiction writer. . . . Most of his work, in fact, occupies a murky uncertain terrain, a lawless border town where poetry, fiction, and memoir meet for a light lunch. In some of these essays, we meet a writer of criticism and manifestos, reminding us that Bukowski was never simply a primitive naif but rather a disciplined, self-aware, thoughtful, and widely read artisan. It took a lot of hard work to make it seem otherwise.
—Andrew Madigan

The Bloomsbury Review

In digging up more fragments from the author's vast (and uneven) library, editor David Stephen Calonne. . . reveals many of the Dirty Old Man's less-than-savory peccadilloes, but also his singular significance to 20th-century American literature. . . Over the course of the 35-plus pieces in this collection, Bukowski makes full use of his Muse, touching on nearly all his favorite topics: drinking, women, sex ('Workout' could carry an X rating), fighting, horse-racing, the drudgery of the nine-to-five. . . Portions From a Wine-Stained Notebook is a welcome addition to the growing Bukowski library.
—Eric Liebetrau

Charleston City Paper