Being Bukowski

Leading off a new readings series at Casco Bay Books

By Tanya Whiton

“Charles Bukowski is Dead: Celebrating the Death of Literature’s Premiere Misogynist” takes place at Casco Bay Books, in Portland, September 13. Call (207) 541-3842.

WASTED WORDS: Bukowski’s bleary verse gets another reading.

A bleeding ulcer brought Charles Bukowski back to writing — ending a noted drinking career. He’s since been immortalized by generations of would-be poets hoping to booze themselves into a state of inspired vulgarity, and by the movie Barfly. He was an unflinching observer of the ugly underbelly of urban life, and of the bleak machinations of the human heart: lustful, greedy, dissolute, desperate, his often autobiographical narrators speak from dingy hotel rooms and barren marriage beds of lives that seem stripped of meaning or hope. Bukowski deliberately refused to decorate the whole shitting, fucking, sweating ordeal of existence with lyricism.

Which is why David Meiklejohn — former punk-band promoter and friendly counter-man at Casco Bay Books — chose Bukowski’s writings for the first public reading in a new series to take place at the Middle Street café/bookstore. Meiklejohn likes to make people uncomfortable, to take them out of context and see what results. The stark, confrontational nature of Bukowski’s prose struck him as the perfect platform from which to launch a discussion-worthy succession of events. “Bukowski’s work is aggressive, rude, and nasty,” says Meiklejohn. “He pushes buttons: he’s an incredible misogynist, he’s a bastard.”

Bored with the traditional open poetry reading, in which would-be poets often drive their audiences to drink, and where reading published writers’ works is generally frowned upon, Meiklejohn decided to devote an evening to varying interpretations of one man’s words. Casco Bay Books owner Mark High has given him free reign to do so.

“[Regular readings] are a drag sometimes,” Meiklejohn says. “I don’t know if there’s a whole lot you can do with that format [in terms of engaging your listeners] — you’ve gotta break out of that structure. I want this to be more entertainment than art.”

To that end he’s hired on a hard-core fan: Justin Vogel, who’s currently writing his undergraduate thesis on Bukowski; some notorious local writer/performers: Hillary Dickerson and Annie Seikonia; a spate of musicians: Dave Camlin of Castle Bravo, Sydney Bourke of Mewt, and Zach Howard of Conifer; co-worker Leah Fasulo; and Tom Mahoney, who runs the record label Obtuse Mule.

“I specifically looked for people that would make it strange reading him: Bukowski’s a man’s man, always talking about booze, sleeping with women, going to the track,” Meiklejohn says. He decided on a mix of female performers — who would lend an inherently powerful tension between content and delivery — and “people from different media” — who are used to being on stage, but not without the props and backdrop of musical instruments.

Meiklejohn’s spare, DIY philosophy of event-making and his love for weird combinations of both performer and subject and performer and venue come from an early punk influence — in high school, he booked bands into area Elks Lodges, and took great pleasure in the spectacle of aged veterans parked at the bar while purple-haired kids moshed around to loud, obnoxious music. He also published a journal for a while, Envoy, a “no budget, guerilla publication,” which he’d connive ways to print, then sew up on his sewing machine and distribute by hand.

He’d initially planned on a multi-media performance, on integrating video and audio clips with the readings, but “then that just seemed like clutter and noise. I wanted to find one person who could be read [and whose words would make for a rowdy, bizarre atmosphere] without detracting from the art of reading.”

A writer himself, Meiklejohn confesses: “I’m not even really a Bukowski fan — I don’t think anyone would call [his work] high literature. But because of how vile he can be, putting it out in a public sphere is dangerous. It’s gonna have more power being spoken than T.S. Eliot.”

Whether or not that’s true, as bard of the broken-down, Bukowski would no doubt be pleased that he’s featured guest at a party where the host doesn’t really like him — it would give him all the more reason to reflect through words the experience of being bitter, drunk, crude, outcast. His blunt, plain and painful poetry is still — decades after he cleaned up and began writing in earnest — arresting and timely in its honesty. The presence of the body, of desire and decay, is present in all of his work: “ªy little famous bleeding elbows/ my knotty knees (especially) and/ even my balls/ hairy and wasted . . .” and it makes for a visceral reading and listening experience.

The juxtaposition of pain and enjoyment is what’s gonna make it interesting,” says Meiklejohn. Future readings at Casco Bay Books will explore other areas of writer/audience reaction and interaction: High is planning a Ginsberg/Blake reading for later in the fall, and Meiklejohn is contemplating what writers might keep the vibe lively in his next big show. “It’s not some pre-packaged thing with a name and a regular schedule,” he says. “Each one will be an original.”

Tanya Whiton can be reached at twhiton@prexar.com.