Cover

CHARLES BUKOWSKI

SCREAMS FROM THE BALCONY

SELECTED LETTERS 1960-1970

EDITED BY
SEAMUS COONEY

Contents

Editor’s Note

• 1958 •

• 1959 •

• 1960 •

• 1961 •

• 1962 •

• 1963 •

• 1964 •

• 1965 •

• 1966 •

• 1967 •

• 1968 •

• 1969 •

Afterword

Searchable Terms

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Other Books by Charles Bukowski

Cover

Copyright

About the Publisher

EDITOR’S NOTE

The last thing this book needs is an academic introduction—so the few comments I have to offer will be the last thing, relegated to an Afterword.

All that’s required here is an explanation of how the letters have been edited. Working from photocopies of letters in private and public collections available to me, I have transcribed and selected roughly 50% of their contents. My only criterion was vividness and interest of the contents, while trying to minimize repetition. Except for three or four word changes, there has been no censorship or expurgation. Letters from the seventies and later will appear in a subsequent volume, where earlier letters found too late for printing here may also be included. Headnote comments about his correspondents are quoted from notes Charles Bukowski made at my request.

A few reproductions of letters (not all of them transcribed for inclusion) will let readers glimpse what this book cannot render: the total visual effect of many Bukowski letters, often decorated with drawings, painting, or collages. Not only are such visual components regrettably sacrificed, but making a readable text has also meant imposing some regularity on Bukowski’s spacing, spelling, and the like. There is no way these things could be fully preserved in setting type, in any case. And after a few instances (some of which I’ve preserved), typos grow distracting. But to give the flavor, I have presented a couple of representative letters verbatim and uncorrected.

Other editorial changes are regularizing of dates and the omission of most salutations and signoffs. For emphasis and for titles in his letters, Bukowski often typed in ALL CAPS. In a book these are hard on the eye. Here, when they are for emphasis, we print them as SMALL CAPS; when they name titles, we print them in regular title format: italics for books, quotes for separate poems or stories. I have indicated editorial omissions by asterisks in square brackets. A few editorial additions are similarly bracketed. A minimum of explanatory material has been included preceding some letters. References to Hank are to the biography of Bukowski by Neeli Cherkovski. “Dorbin” refers to Sanford Dorbin’s A Bibliography of Charles Bukowski (Black Sparrow, 1969).

The title for this volume was supplied by Charles Bukowski.

• 1958 •