08-04-2018, 03:53 AM
I want to talk about poetry. I remember in the late '90s or early 2000s Harold Bloom was on In Depth, a program on BookTV on CSPAN2 on Saturdays and Sundays. And someone from the smalltown in Virginia I live in called in and said he was proud to say that The Twentieth Century Views edited by Harold Bloom was on full display at the city's public library. . . . Well, it's not there anymore, I'm looking at it right now, all 88 volumes of it, that I stole from the Danville Public Library, as soon as they stamped the big word DISCARDED on the A. R. Ammons one. After that, I stole ALL of them. I'm not finished, hold on . . . I want to get to my point. . . .
I remembered that interview last night when I was drinking and saw them books in my room. I thought how I'd like to ask Harold Bloom personally what he thought of Charles Bukowski. I doubt anyone has ever been naive enough to ask him that. But a man named William Joyce wrote a book in the late '80s that I found an autographed copy of in a used bookstore , in Michigan or however you spell it I think, called Henry Miller, Bukowski and Their Enemies. . . . Hold on . . .
The term Fluff Gathering, that I came up with to use in my criticism, this man William James gave me the idea, though he didn't use those words . . . because he wrote an essay in that book on Charles Bukowski, comparing him to W. C. Fields, and making a wonderful, technical, argument for Bukowski's merit as a poet. I encourage you here to find that book and read it.
Lately, I've seen, that he's been living in Mexico, and changed his name, and has been writing cliched essays about Donald Trump's faults. But I encourage you all to read his 1980s essays, William Joyce.
I remembered that interview last night when I was drinking and saw them books in my room. I thought how I'd like to ask Harold Bloom personally what he thought of Charles Bukowski. I doubt anyone has ever been naive enough to ask him that. But a man named William Joyce wrote a book in the late '80s that I found an autographed copy of in a used bookstore , in Michigan or however you spell it I think, called Henry Miller, Bukowski and Their Enemies. . . . Hold on . . .
The term Fluff Gathering, that I came up with to use in my criticism, this man William James gave me the idea, though he didn't use those words . . . because he wrote an essay in that book on Charles Bukowski, comparing him to W. C. Fields, and making a wonderful, technical, argument for Bukowski's merit as a poet. I encourage you here to find that book and read it.
Lately, I've seen, that he's been living in Mexico, and changed his name, and has been writing cliched essays about Donald Trump's faults. But I encourage you all to read his 1980s essays, William Joyce.