Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live with Beasts (Inscribed to a poet)
- SIGNED
- Bensenville, Ill: Mimeo Press / Publishers of Ole, 1965
Bensenville, Ill: Mimeo Press / Publishers of Ole, 1965. First edition. Near Fine. One of about 500 copies of the first edition, this one elaborately inscribed by Bukowski to Los Angeles poet Jack Grapes: "For Marcus J[ack] Grapes - Who welds the sad tear to the face of it. Our songs our nothing songs ache like teeth. Tomorrow: no teeth. Boy o boy! Charles Bukowski 1-28-66." Publisher's illustrated saddle-stitched wrappers, 8.5 x 5.5 inches, 24 unpaginated leaves, 2 blanks, alternating colored leaves: maize, white and pink. Minor toning to wrappers, still a Near Fine copy.
Jack Grapes is a Los Angeles poet, publisher, and former editor of the poetry journal ONTHEBUS (1989-2017). Notably, Grapes' poems appeared alongside Charles Bukowski's in an issue of the short-lived but influential Loujon Press literary journal The Outsider (1960-1969). Bukowski also corresponded with Grapes and inscribed several books to him. In the spring of 1965, Grapes, then a young poet with a burgeoning career, wrote to Bukowski to share his chapbook This Thing Upon Me (titled from the first line of Bukowski's poem "Old Man, Dead in a Room") and to ask for advice from the more experienced writer. In Bukowski's response, he praised Grapes' poetry chapbook ("the first 4 lines of poem 10 are as good as anybody can write") and added, "Well if you want advice from an old man - the writing comes out of the living and if you've got to sell-out to stay alive, sell as little as possible, save what you can. it's when you give it all up to them that you are dead. don't be in a hurry to make it. it's more important to sit around in the sunlight or sleep. it will come along if you let it...I am honored, of course, that you 'stole' the title THIS THING UPON ME, and hope that you find some poems in CRUCIFIX. I have signed some pages, one of them to you, must get them in the mail so the people can get their books. It seems so strange to be signing pages. is this the way it happens? your turn now. hail, Buk"
In the "long short story" Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live with Beasts, Bukowski introduced the world to "Henry Chinaski," his alter-ego and favorite anti-hero.
Krumhansl 17. Near Fine.
Jack Grapes is a Los Angeles poet, publisher, and former editor of the poetry journal ONTHEBUS (1989-2017). Notably, Grapes' poems appeared alongside Charles Bukowski's in an issue of the short-lived but influential Loujon Press literary journal The Outsider (1960-1969). Bukowski also corresponded with Grapes and inscribed several books to him. In the spring of 1965, Grapes, then a young poet with a burgeoning career, wrote to Bukowski to share his chapbook This Thing Upon Me (titled from the first line of Bukowski's poem "Old Man, Dead in a Room") and to ask for advice from the more experienced writer. In Bukowski's response, he praised Grapes' poetry chapbook ("the first 4 lines of poem 10 are as good as anybody can write") and added, "Well if you want advice from an old man - the writing comes out of the living and if you've got to sell-out to stay alive, sell as little as possible, save what you can. it's when you give it all up to them that you are dead. don't be in a hurry to make it. it's more important to sit around in the sunlight or sleep. it will come along if you let it...I am honored, of course, that you 'stole' the title THIS THING UPON ME, and hope that you find some poems in CRUCIFIX. I have signed some pages, one of them to you, must get them in the mail so the people can get their books. It seems so strange to be signing pages. is this the way it happens? your turn now. hail, Buk"
In the "long short story" Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live with Beasts, Bukowski introduced the world to "Henry Chinaski," his alter-ego and favorite anti-hero.
Krumhansl 17. Near Fine.