An Answer to a Critic of Sorts: Extremely Rare Charles Bukowski Broadside

Published in 1972 out of Oconomowoc Lake, Wisconsin, An Answer to a Critic of Sorts is a rare Charles Bukowski broadside that was included in Stooge #5.

Geoffrey Young and Allen Schiller co-edited this issue of Stooge. Schiller’s idea was to create a collection of broadsides that would be housed in an empty pizza box. The interior and exterior of each pizza box was decorated by hand, with a large No. 5 printed on the front.

Inside was a series of poetry broadsides accompanied by smaller pieces, such as printed napkins, a jigsaw puzzle piece or two, some vocabulary learning cards, and several art pieces.

Molly Young, niece of co-editor Geoffrey Young, recalls her uncle describing how the folio was unwieldy to pack and ship, so he asked Bukowski if he and his wife could swing by and drop off Bukowski’s copy at his house. As Geoffrey Young recalled:

“We knocked on the door of his nondescript house in a typical So-Cal court of same-size-and-shape houses. He ushered us into the living room, where immediately we noticed a huge pyramid of beer cans in front of one wall. Hamm's, I think. Hundreds of cans. My thought was, ‘No, it can’t be, the college kid routine?’ There were no signs of a desk, paper, or books in this room, however. Typewriter, table, and manuscripts must have been in his bedroom...

Then we showed him the issue. Soon enough he said he had to go pick up his car at the service station, and could we give him a ride. A mile later he was getting out at the gas station, and we said good-bye. I remember his friendly farewell, then him striding away from the car almost as if he were a dancer. It was all in those first few steps. He wasn’t yet beer-bellied—this was 1972, he wore a light sportcoat, scuffed brown shoes—and I liked the smooth rhythm of his gait. I had expected ungainliness, for some reason; he seemed lithe, almost athletic. And he was sober.”

This listing is only for the broadside itself, which is in Near Fine-minus condition. A previous bookseller stupidly wrote the inventory number on the top-left corner and a price notation on the upper right in pencil. There are also three light, but visible creases. Two are on the upper left and one is on the right edge about halfway down.

The poem was also published in the Linda King/Charles Bukowski chapbook “Me and Your Sometimes Love Poems” as To a Critic of Sorts. 

Case 3