Screams From the Balcony (52 page)

CHARLES BUKOWSKI is one of America’s best-known contemporary writers of poetry and prose, and, many would claim, its most influential and imitated poet. He was born in Andernach, Germany, to an American soldier father and a German mother in 1920, and brought to the United States at the age of three. He was raised in Los Angeles and lived there for fifty years. He published his first story in 1944 when he was twenty-four and began writing poetry at the age of thirty-five. He died in San Pedro, California, on March 9, 1994, at the age of seventy-three, shortly after completing his last novel,
Pulp
(1994).

During his lifetime he published more than forty-five books of poetry and prose, including the novels
Post Office
(1971),
Factotum
(1975),
Women
(1978),
Ham on Rye
(1982), and
Hollywood
(1989). Among his most recent books are the posthumous editions of
What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire
(1999),
Open All Night: New Poems
(2000),
Beerspit Night and Cursing: The Correspondence of Charles Bukowski and Sheri Martinelli 1960-1967
(2001), and
The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps: New Poems
(2001).

All of his books have now been published in translation in over a dozen languages and his worldwide popularity remains undiminished. In the years to come, Ecco will publish additional volumes of previously uncollected poetry and letters.

Seamus Cooney was born in Ireland and educated there and in the United States. He now teaches English literature at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo.

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The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills
(1969)

Post Office
(1971)

Mockingbird Wish Me Luck
(1972)

South of No North
(1973)

Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame: Selected Poems 1955-1973
(1974)

Factotum
(1975)

Love is a Dog from Hell: 1974-1977
(1977)

Women
(1978)

You Kissed Lily
(1978)

Play the piano drunk/ Like a percussion instrument/ Until the fingers begin to bleed a bit
(1979)

Shakespeare Never Did This
(1979)

Dangling in the Tournefortia
(1981)

Ham on Rye
(1982)

Bring Me Your Love
(1983)

Hot Water Music
(1983)

There’s No Business
(1984)

War All the Time: Poems 1981-1984
(1984)

You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense
(1986)

The Movie: “Barfly”
(1987)

The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems 1946-1966
(1988)

Hollywood
(1989)

Septuagenarian Stew: Stories & Poems
(1990)

The Last Night of the Earth Poems
(1992)

Screams from the Balcony: Selected Letters 1960-1970 (Volume 1)
(1993)

Pulp
(1994)

Living on Luck: Selected Letters 1960s-1970s (Volume 2)
(1995)

Betting on the Muse: Poems & Stories
(1996)

Bone Palace Ballet: New Poems
(1997)

The Captain is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship
(1998)

Reach for the Sun: Selected Letters 1978-1994 (Volume 3)
(1999)

What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire: New Poems
(1999)

Open All Night: New Poems
(2000)

Beerspit Night and Cursing: The Correspondence of Charles Bukowski & Sheri Martinelli 1960-1987
(2001)

Night Torn Mad with Footsteps: New Poems
(2001)

Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way: New Poems
(2002)

SCREAMS FROM THE BALCONY: SELECTED LETTERS 1960-1970
. Copyright © 1978 by Charles Bukowski. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Mobipocket Reader August 2007 ISBN 978-0-06-149402-4

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^*
“What is this life if full of care, / We have no time to stand and stare?”—from “Leisure” by W. H. Davies, a popular anthology poem.—
Ed
.

^*
Felix Pollak, “A Letter from Chuck Buck,”
The Smith
, no. 7 (15 October 1966), pp. 40-47.

^*
Another who came through should be acknowledged here: Douglas Blazek generously returned to Bukowski the large number of letters addressed to him.—Ed.