A local poetry-reading group, Ghent Poetry Cafe, has a guiding philosophy similar to that of Charles Bukowski's.
Born in 1920, (died in 1994) Bukowski was the only child of an American soldier and a German mother. At age three, he went with his family to the U.S. He grew up in L.A., attended L.A. City College from 1939 to 1941, and then left school and moved to NY to become a writer. His failure to be published caused him to give up writing in 1946 and spurred ten years of heavy drinking. After developing a bleeding ulcer, he decided to take up writing again. To support his writing, he worked a variety of jobs: dishwasher, truck driver and loader, mail carrier, guard, gas station attendant, stock boy, warehouse worker, shipping clerk, post office clerk, parking lot attendant, Red Cross orderly, and elevator operator. He also worked in a dog biscuit factory, a slaughterhouse, a cake and cookie factory, and he hung posters in New York City subways.
In 1959, Bukowski's first book of poetry was published. He went on to publish more than 45 books of poetry and prose.
In the next email I'll type in Bukowski's poem, "so you want to be a writer?" And in the following email I'll type in his "comments upon my last book of poesy: Charles Bukowski."
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