Charles Bukowski
Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) was an American poet and novelist known for gritty, unvarnished writing about drinking, sex, gambling, and working-class Los Angeles life.
His deliberately crude style and persona as a skid-row laureate earned both cult following and literary dismissal.
Major works include *Post Office*, *Ham on Rye*, and countless poems published in small press magazines.
American film industry center
- Skid RowImpoverished urban district
- dive barsRundown neighborhood taverns
- racetracksCircuits for competitive speed
- palm treesTropical plants with fronds
smog · freeways · Sunset Boulevard · Echo Park · downtown · bungalows · liquor stores · post office
Intoxicating hydroxyl compound
- wineFermented grape beverage
- beerFermented grain drink
- barflyHabitual pub patron
- hangoverPost-drinking illness
skid row · poverty · gambling · racetracks · women · debauchery · dive bars · blue-collar
One excluded from group
- lonerOne who avoids company
- underdogPresumed loser beforehand
- dirty old manLecherous elderly male
- barflyHabitual pub patron
rebel · nonconformist · iconoclast · anti-hero · cult figure · counterculture · underground · misanthrope
In original state
- unvarnishedWithout embellishment or coating
- profaneIrreverent toward the sacred
- vulgarCrude or indecent
- sardonicGrimly mocking
cynical · bleak · unflinching · hardboiled · gruff · unpolished · direct · spare
- Dostoevsky19th-century Russian author
- classical musicWestern orchestral tradition
- MahlerAustrian composer-conductor
- BrahmsRomantic German composer
Celine · horse racing · boxing · naturalism
Writer of verse
- novelistWriter of prose narratives
- short storiesBrief prose narratives
- typewriterMechanical printing keyboard
- prolificProducing abundantly and often
small press · chapbooks · underground · transgressive · autobiographical · confessional
Hollywood
American film industry center
- Skid RowImpoverished urban district
- dive barsRundown neighborhood taverns
- racetracksCircuits for competitive speed
palm trees · smog · freeways · Sunset Boulevard · Echo Park · downtown · bungalows · liquor stores · post office · Los Angeles Times
alcohol
Intoxicating hydroxyl compound
hangover · skid row · poverty · gambling · racetracks · women · debauchery · dive bars · blue-collar · underdog
outsider
One excluded from group
- lonerOne who avoids company
- underdogPresumed loser beforehand
- dirty old manLecherous elderly male
barfly · rebel · nonconformist · iconoclast · anti-hero · cult figure · counterculture · underground · misanthrope · recluse
raw
In original state
- unvarnishedWithout embellishment or coating
- profaneIrreverent toward the sacred
- vulgarCrude or indecent
sardonic · cynical · bleak · unflinching · hardboiled · gruff · unpolished · direct · spare · gritty
Hemingway
- Dostoevsky19th-century Russian author
- classical musicWestern orchestral tradition
- MahlerAustrian composer-conductor
Celine · Brahms · horse racing · boxing · naturalism
poet
Writer of verse
- novelistWriter of prose narratives
- short storiesBrief prose narratives
- typewriterMechanical printing keyboard
prolific · small press · chapbooks · underground · transgressive · autobiographical · confessional
- poetrypoem, poems, poetry, verse, verses
- Famous Charles
- "Famous "Bu-" NamesBuddha, Robert Burns, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Pearl Buck
- American WritersToni Morrison, Philip Roth, Cormac McCarthy, John Updike, Thomas Pynchon
- California WritersJohn Steinbeck, Jack London, Joan Didion, Raymond Chandler, Philip K. Dick
- Provocative WritersHunter S. Thompson, Allen Ginsberg, Henry Miller, Marquis de Sade, D.H. Lawrence
Charles BukowskiHenry James
"The Ambassadors" author
Vladimir Nabokov · T.S. Eliot · Marcel Proust · Edith Wharton · John Updike