Ben Tibbs is best known for his artwork on the cover of Flower, Fist and Bestial Wail, Charles Bukowski's first book. Published in 1960, it features a fist gripping a flower below a face that's tilted skyward with its mouth openly wailing. It's a striking image that even impressed Bukowski, who had previously dismissed Tibbs as a "rather ordinary talent."
Presented here are 11 original letters written by Bukowski to Tibbs between early 1963 and March 1967. I obtained the letters from Seamus Cooney a few months before his death in December 2023. A professor of English at Western Michigan University, Cooney is best known for his work at Black Sparrow Press — most notably the three large volumes of Bukowski letters the press published between 1993-1999.
Both Cooney and Tibbs resided in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and were friends for many years. Tibbs was a printer, poet and graphic artist who was published alongside Bukowski in little magazines such as Hearse, The Outsider and Wormwood Review in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Tibbs was also known for his cover art on chapbooks published by the Hors Commerce Press.
Cooney numbered these letters [3] through [13] in pencil. Numbers [1] and [2] were likely letters that were printed in Screams from the Balcony — one dated June 8, 1961, and the other identified simply as "early 1962."
Those two letters are reproduced here because they are important in understanding how the correspondence began and endured through the years. It started with a simple request from Tibbs to Bukowski for a copy of Flower, Fist and Bestial Wail, which publisher E.V. Griffith had failed to send the artist.
Letter [1] — June 8, 1961
Sorry I can only ship one copy but I am down to the end of mine. Other people have written me that Griffith does not respond either to money or written request. I have attempted to send copies to all those who asked for them but Griffith only sent me a limited number. What has gone wrong up in Eureka I really don't know. Thank you for doing the Art work on Flower, Fist. I think you caught the spirit of the poems and the title quite well.
After receiving Bukowski's response, Tibbs followed up by sending Bukowski one dollar for the book. It's not clear what else Tibbs said in the letter, but it appears he told Bukowski to spend the money on beer if he didn't want it for the book:
Letter [2] — Early 1962
I had meant to ask you not to send dollar; certainly this is one hell of a price to pay to see the fine cover you did for Griffith. But instead of sending the dollar back, I am going to suffer you with a copy of Longshot Poems for Broke Players. Am sending the buck on to Larsen for this purpose, but am having the beers anyhow. Many thanks for your graciousness and understanding.
Presented chronologically, the 11 letters that follow show how that one dollar turned into a tradition that kept the two men in contact, even as Bukowski's recognition continued to grow. Mind you, this is not the correspondence of close friends — Bukowski wrote to Doug Blazek, William Corrington and Jon and Lou Webb in far greater volume and depth during this period. But the letters show an affinity between the two men around each other's craft and the common circumstance of age.
Letter [3] — Undated, circa early 1963, Mariposa Avenue, Los Angeles
Three years earlier, Bukowski had dismissed Tibbs to a friend as "rather ordinary talent." Whatever Tibbs sent him this time, it changed his mind completely.
"It is the best one I have seen of yours. Don't be pissed, but I think it so good I'd almost use that dirty word 'genius'."
We know from a May 1, 1963 letter to Jon and Louise Webb — not part of this collection but published in Screams from the Balcony — what the drawing looked like and how deeply it affected him:
"Ben Tibbs shipped me a drawing which he says has not submitted anywhere and he wants me to have it, only it seems so quite warmly funny and good . . . I would like you to see it for possible Outsider use, but I would like the original back. I guess he just drew it for me, but hell hell, it's something . . . called "Idyll" and it has one of Ben's little old men with life-filled child eyes, hat on, reading a book in a rocking chair, and it's out on the grass, and there's a bed and the woman is putting a sheet on this bed and you can see part of the body through the sheet and just where the THING is, there is a patch on the sheet—oh, it is not vile ugly dirty but warm laugh clean and love—and then on the sidelights: there is some kind of bird sitting on the head of the bed, and he's looking at the patch, and there's a tree back there. Ben wants me to send him something in ink, but hell hell I can't match, it's trying to draw to an inside straight with a short deck."
Clearly, Bukowski no longer thinks he "could do better."
In the same letter to the Webbs, Bukowski is impressed that Tibbs continues to produce and publish his work despite his age:
"Did you know he's an old man? Not that this should prejudice judgement of a work. I see whatever I can see that is there. But when you get an old man who still has velvet in his dreams you get something coo, dad, and mama."
The letter also acknowledges the death of Tibbs' wife. Bukowski had lost his own companion, Jane Cooney Baker, just a year earlier. Whether that loss informed his response we can only speculate — but for two men who barely knew each other, the empathy is remarkable: "maybe she's watching, and if she isn't, go on anyway — she'd tell you to."
Letter [4] — April 1, 1963, Mariposa Avenue, Los Angeles
The first precisely dated letter in the collection. Bukowski thanks Tibbs for a note about the Bukowski section in The Outsider #3 — the issue that named him Outsider of the Year and featured him on the cover. He's been meaning to write but has been "drunk and tangled." He has no drawings to exchange at the moment but promises to eventually do one and ship it to Tibbs.
Worth noting — Tibbs drew the title page art for Outsider #3. The figure he created there — a little old man with a hat, expressive face, standing in a landscape — echoes the drawing he sent Bukowski described in the Webb letter: "one of Ben's little old men with life-filled child eyes, hat on." It was clearly a recurring character in Tibbs' work.
Letter [5] — Undated, 1963
A brief note — Bukowski acknowledging Tibbs' patience. "I have not fucked out on you, or forgotten; drawing coming someday, sometime... have been drunk, and if do not die meanwhile, something forthcoming toward the fine most fine gift you sent me.... Please understand, I am mixed mixed mixed, but I do try, so hold."
The promise of a drawing remains just that — a promise. But the letter itself includes a quick Bukowski ink sketch directly on the page, one of his characteristic little men, bold and economical.
Letter [6] — January 19, 1964, Mariposa Avenue, Los Angeles
After months of promising, Bukowski has finally completed a drawing for Tibbs and enclosed it with this letter. He's made it using colored sticks found at the 10 cent store, plus india ink — whatever materials were cheap and available. A neighbor is beating on his floor every time he types. "Really depressing. Can't think now."
He signs off "best, sure, Buk" — and notes the drawing will probably be a few more days before he actually mails it.
Letter [7] — February 7, 1964, Mariposa Avenue, Los Angeles
The most significant letter in the collection — and one of the more remarkable documents in the Bukowski archive.
"All rough here, but your drawing hangs the South wall well and they have not killed us yet."
The letter includes an original ink drawing — two figures at a table, a man and a woman (potentially Frances Smith). A cigarette in his mouth, another burning in an ashtray between them. Signed "c.b." at lower right — unusual for Bukowski, who typically signed his drawings "Buk."
In the left margin, written vertically while listening to Stravinsky, Bukowski works something out about art and being understood: "Listening to Stravinsky — there is something still to — like here — perhaps energy — trying to scrape for super — cede this — scratching god, being understood — the drunken form — more important than being — mis-understood right now."
At the bottom of the page, in his distinctive all-caps hand, an original aphorism:
The unhappy poverty of the mad and godly lower class will be redeemed too late for most of us, too early for the rest.
Below it: "Just thought this up to illustrate above sketch. Think I will use it for one of Jon's purples."
Jon Webb's purple colophon pages were special sheets mailed to Bukowski for the deluxe editions of It Catches My Heart in Its Hands — to write or draw on, then returned to be bound into individual copies. That same night, Bukowski wrote to the Webbs: "I stole 2 excerpts from letter to Ben Tibbs tonight for purples. I hope he does not think me a zero for this. Wrote letter first without thought of anything — then got 'purples' on mind."
Letter [8] — Circa Early 1965, DeLongpre Avenue, Los Angeles
This is the first of two letters in which Bukowski used US Air Mail postcards. For a man who spent years sorting mail at the Terminal Annex post office, there's something fitting about it.
Curiously, this card arrived without a postmark, so we don't know the exact date, but it's likely early 1965. The return address is 5124 DeLongpre Avenue — a larger apartment he took with Frances Smith, who was pregnant with his daughter Marina. According to the timeline at bukowski.net, he was temporarily without a typewriter during this period, which may explain the handwritten message. Finally, he mentions that work has begun on Crucifix in a Deathhand — and notably makes no mention of New Orleans, where he would travel in March to write poems for the book and sign new blank colophon pages, this time blue rather than purple.
He expresses his usual relief that Christmas is over and mentions that T.S. Eliot is dead — Eliot died January 4, 1965.
He ends the message with: "And you and I go on a little while longer."
Letter [9] — November 9, 1965, DeLongpre Avenue, Los Angeles
The only letter in the collection with a postmark — November 9, 1965 — stamped on the front of the airmail postcard. This one is typed rather than handwritten.
Bukowski has been meaning to write about Tibbs' response to Crucifix in a Deathhand. He's self-critical about the book but acknowledges he may have gotten a few good poems from it. He saw Webb a month earlier in Santa Fe — "He is high on your work. I am too."
The warmth of this letter is not accidental. In September 1965, Bukowski had sent an open letter to all his correspondents asking them to send his letters to Veryl Rosenbaum — then publishing under her maiden name Veryl Blatt — who was gathering them for a planned collection, an idea originating with Doug Blazek. He was warming up Tibbs before making the same request directly — which he would do in the next two letters.
When he runs out of space on the back he continues onto the front alongside the address — a stream of consciousness about staying alive, belonging nowhere, and enduring anyway. It's some of the most compressed writing in the collection.
Letter [10] — Undated, circa November 1965, DeLongpre Avenue, Los Angeles
Cooney has penciled [Nov 65] in the top right corner. No date given — just "l.a. month what year what ????" Bukowski at his most chronologically indifferent.
He asks Tibbs to forward any letters he's kept — someone is gathering them for a planned collection. He's drunk enough that in the next letter, written just days later, he won't remember writing this one. The campaign was running across multiple correspondents simultaneously — Ann Menebroker received the same request on November 17, in almost identical language.
It's a chaotic letter with Bukowski jumping all over the place, but there's a line worthy of a purple or blue page:
"my poems may be shit
but my living has been fullblast."
He closes simply: "keep all of it — Buk."
Letter [11] — November 27, 1965, DeLongpre Avenue, Los Angeles
Three days after Thanksgiving. Bukowski has been drinking so much he can't remember if he's written Tibbs or not — which, of course, he has.
Veryl Rosenbaum is gathering his letters for a planned collection, an idea originating with Doug Blazek and OLE magazine. He urges Tibbs to send his letters in. Rosenbaum was herself a presence in this world — she published Tibbs through Hors-Commerce Press and also published Bukowski in her magazine Outcast.
He has just received his copy of Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live with Beasts — his first book of prose, published by Blazek's Mimeo Press.
The Webbs have finally settled — now at 1009 E. Elm Street, Tucson, Arizona, going into Outsider #4, a partial Patchen issue. Bukowski encourages Tibbs to send drawings and poems. He had visited the Webbs in Santa Fe the previous month, and describes his behavior there in his characteristic present tense: "I am drunk, running around in the icey rain, falling into mudholes, cursing the world. for a guy 45, I still don't know where I am, never will."
He mentions trying to get something to The Goodly Company — a Kalamazoo publication, Tibbs' hometown. Bukowski would eventually contribute "A Killer Gets Ready" to issue No. 5 in April 1966.
He recommends a new magazine — EARTH, edited by Steve Richmond out of Santa Monica. Bukowski would appear in both issues of EARTH and in Earth Rose 1. "EARTH is wide open. yeah, like a grave, only the skulls are singing and shouting."
Tibbs has sent booklets with his illustrations published by Hors-Commerce Press. Bukowski is critical of the press but supportive of Tibbs: "crime the way they faded your drawings. you oughta quit 'em."
He closes: "all best now, Ben, hang on in, hang on in, do the thing."
Letter [12] — December 13, 1965, DeLongpre Avenue, Los Angeles
Tibbs has sent his usual Christmas card and enclosed drink money. Bukowski follows up on his recommendation from letter [11] — send black and white india ink work to EARTH magazine. Steve Richmond's bookstore already carries work by Anna Purcell, who did the cover for Confessions of a Man Insane Enough to Live with Beasts, but there's room for more.
Written by a man working overtime at the post office during the busiest mail season of the year, Bukowski's annual incomprehension of Christmas comes through clearly — the miserable people buying presents out of fear rather than joy, the exhaustion of the season, the whole enterprise "fucked up."
The letter includes an original drawing in blue ballpoint — two figures in a chaotic embrace or struggle, one clearly meant to be Santa Claus, rendered with the same loose energy as the ink drawing in letter [7].
Letter [13] — March 7, 1967, DeLongpre Avenue, Los Angeles
The final letter in the collection. A gap of fifteen months since letter [12] — Bukowski has lost Tibbs' address in the chaos of his correspondence and only found it tonight by searching through old envelopes.
"I'm a fuckup. I have your letters in barrels of letters but couldn't find your address. Finally found on envelope tonight. to thank you — 3 months later — for good card letter and enclosed xmas drink."
The Christmas dollar had arrived. It just took him three months to find the address to acknowledge it.
"I finally found ol' Ben, I finally found ol' Ben. an area of madness removed from my mind."
He is dried out, trembling, not much to hold onto. But finding Tibbs' address has genuinely relieved him.
The letter includes a quick pencil sketch — one of his characteristic little men, this one appearing to hold a bottle. Perhaps the one bought with Tibbs' Christmas money.
He closes with the most encouraging sign-off in the collection:
"keep your brush und typer going. it's the only way for us old sad dogs, Ben. good grace to you; less grief. more flow."
Coda
Less than a year after letter [13], Bukowski sat down and wrote to his friend John William Corrington. It was January 3, 1968. Tibbs had apparently sent his Christmas dollar once again — we don't know for certain, but his presence in what follows suggests he had. We also don't know if Bukowski ever wrote back.
What we do know is that Tibbs had made it into the coffee can — which was not where letters went to die. The ones Bukowski truly dismissed went into a big closet box with his dirty socks thrown on top. The can was for people he still intended to answer, when he had the time, when he was sober enough. In describing its contents to Corrington, Bukowski immortalized him in a single line:
listen, I have this large blue coffee can on the shelf and it is full of unanswered letters, this neither means that I like or dislike the people who have written them; it means that I am drunk or playing horses or sick or non-electric, can't do, you know, no snob, just no time; I'd like to be a snob but I'd rather have the time, here, let me show you— I reach into this can and I pull out these and find that I OWE letters of response to: one: Jack Micheline (c/o Cohen); a Steven Osterlund— who wrote last August asking where he could get some of my pukes; a Willie who calls himself the "manic"; an x-horse magazine editor called Conte who is now in Augusta (postmark says Sept. 25); a Douglas Blazek; a William Stetson (his postmark, Aug. 22, unanswered); a Bassett at the William Morris Agency— 1350 Ave. of the Americas— postmark, June 12, '67; a Larouche of Albuquerque; a William Wantling; a Marcus Verily Grapes who writes very drippy letters; a Jim Roman (his dated 6-26-67); a Heinrich Fett of Andernach, Germany, 547 Andernach, Privat Str 1, my 79 year old uncle who says "I don't understand why you haven't written. Are you well?"; an A. W. Purdy, 137 Waverley St., Apt. 3, Ottawa, Canada (his mark: Oct. 11); an Ann Menenbroker of Sacramento, who I ask to please relent but the letters arrive, one two three a week; my x-wife, one Barbara Hayakawa of Aniak, Alaska; one Scott Reed of Edwards, Mississippi; a Hale Chatfield of Hiram, Ohio; one Stuart McCarrell of Chi (his mark: March 19, 1967); one Dan Georgakas, a most interesting and violent anarchist; one H. Norse of 23 St. Marks Crescent, London; a Boatright; a DeLoach; a Charles Potts, Listade Ciereaex or something, L, no Jalisco, Mexico; a Richmond, Steve, of Santa Monica, Calif; a Bob Peters, dept, of English; a Fox, dept, of English; a Winski, writer of lurid sex tales; a Sherman, writer of lurid sex tales; a John and Susan Cornillion who promise to visit "this summer, if we may"; a Ben Tibbs, who always sends me a dollar for Christmas; and more and more, Christ, there are others that I have simply thrown into a big closet box and have closed the door on forever, I simply throw my dirty sox on top of them, shit, meaning what?
The list reads like a who's who of the small press underground — Micheline, Blazek, Wantling, DeLoach, Norse, Richmond. Tibbs is among them, identified not by his poetry or his artwork or his cover for Bukowski's first book, but by the one thing he did every year without fail.
It is, in its way, the most fitting memorial a man like Bukowski could offer.