4 Great Charles Bukowski poems you should read.
Charles Bukowski is my favourite author. I first discovered him as a 21-year-old during my first year of university, and my exposure to his work single-handedly sparked the intense interest in poetry that I hold to this day. Since discovering him back then, I have read and listened to dozens of his poems and have spent countless hours thinking about them and trying to understand their hidden meanings.
Luckily for me and others, Bukowski is one of the most popular poets today. You or I can go to any poetry site on the web and find many of his poems listed there on the front page. This makes it easy for potential readers of his to get into his work, and I would encourage anyone who is new to poetry to check him out. Bukowski wrote about things we can all relate to—family, work, boredom, relationships, his impressions of random people he met, death—and many more subjects often in such a blunt and brutally honest way that it’s hard not to be left with lasting emotions long after reading his work. He is, in my opinion, the most real, honest, and accessible poet of the 20th Century. But you don’t have to just take my word for it – read the poems I have listed below and see it for yourself.
Photo by Elliott Blair on Unsplash
‘The man with the beautiful eyes’
The man with the beautiful eyes is a free verse poem about a mysterious man who lives on the outskirts of society and is therefore unaffected by the social norms that control so many of us in our daily lives. By far one of the best ways to experience this poem is to watch the short film directed by Jonathan Hodgson on YouTube, which is complete with stunning visuals and powerful narration. Upon watching it, I, like many other viewers, was left thinking: who is the man with the beautiful eyes?
To me, the man with the beautiful eyes is someone who is separate from society and is, therefore, unaffected by the social rules that come with it. His wild and unkempt appearance in the poem confirms this – as he is presented as unshaven, with minimal clothes and uncombed hair. I think Bukowski uses the man to explore what people would be like if they were separate from others in society who seek to control and build them up in their own image. In the poem, these people are presented as parents who are also the main antagonists of the man himself.
The poem leaves a lot of interesting questions in the mind of the reader about who people could be if they were truly free from the influences of authority figures in society. It is for this reason that anyone who is interested in questions such as these will definitely want to read this poem.
‘The Bluebird’
The Bluebird is one of Bukowski’s most sentimental poems and fixates on the idea of a bluebird that lives inside of the writer’s heart that he tries to shelter from others. Although Bukowski sometimes alludes to more sentimental aspects of life in his other poems, The Bluebird is definitely one of his most sentimental poems, and for this reason, I think it is one of his most popular and memorable. Schmachnus’s YouTube channel has a great reading of this poem, which has amassed over one million views, with many people saying that it is the first time a poem has made them cry – and after watching it, I feel the same.
Since reading the poem, I have thought a lot about what the bluebird is. Could it be a metaphor for Bukowski’s soul, his sentimentality that he feels he cannot show to others as a masculine man, or is it some kind of secret that he feels he must keep hidden away? The enigmatic nature of what the bluebird is could be a reason why the poem has become so popular and why it has struck an emotional cord with so many readers. Whatever the reason for its popularity, the poem exists as an example of how powerful poetry can be when it uses simple language and relatable metaphors that resonate with readers.
‘Let It Enfold You’
I’m going to be honest and say that I didn’t know about this poem until I heard Timothée Chalamet’s beautiful rendition of it in Beautiful Boy, and in hearing it, I was caught off guard by how optimistic it was. Being familiar with Bukowski’s other works, like The Genius of The Crowd, had led me to expect a certain kind of sentiment from his poems, but when I heard this poem, these expectations were completely subverted. It allowed me to see another side of Bukowski that I didn’t know existed but was happy to welcome anyhow.
Something that spoke to me specifically about the poem was how Bukowski traces a character ark in his life, going from a cynical young man who ‘leers at the sun’ to a relaxed, well-mannered older man who is okay with the state of the world and sees no great rush to inspire any change in it. It is biographical and honest and paints the world in a matter-of-fact way that comes across as almost positive.
For this reason, I think that anyone who finds Bukowski’s poetry too cynical should probably read this poem and see just how beautiful his writing can be when it is dedicated to more positive and optimistic subject matter.
‘Imagination and reality’
I love poems that tell a story. Imagination and reality tells the story of Bukowski visiting a single woman’s home and being puzzled at the whereabouts of her boyfriend. The reason this poem works so well is that we, as readers of Bukowski, know that he has a cynical view of humanity—he is quoted as saying: ‘I do not like the human race’ in this documentary. This makes it so that when the poem ends and the truth is revealed, our expectations are subverted, and we, as well as Bukowski, are saddened but also relieved by how the story unfolds.
The reason I love this poem is because it stands as a great example of how good storytelling can be delivered through a short poem, and it is for this reason that I would rather read a poem with an enticing story than a short story nowadays. This poem also stands as a good insight into not only the kinds of worlds that Bukowski creates in his poems but also into who Bukowski paints himself to be within them.
Photo by Travis Blessing on Unsplash
Charles Bukowski has written many great poems. I could pick up a collection of his, put my finger over the contents page and pick a poem at random, and it would be worth writing about and putting in a list similar to this. Although he is seen by some as a drunk womaniser, Bukowski’s poetry is sweet, tender, raw, simple, and even profound at times. He is, in my opinion, the most versatile and exciting poet of the late 20th century and if you should start reading poetry anywhere, start with his.
Books referenced:
Bukowski, Charles. 1992. The Last Night of the Earth Poems. New York: HarperCollins.
Bukowski, Charles. 2010. The Pleasures of the Damned. Great Britain: Canongate Books.
Bukowski, Charles. 1996. Betting on the Muse. New York: HarperCollins.
Bukowski, Charles. 1992. Love is a Dog from Hell. New York: HarperCollins.