Odyssey -- Signed by Charles Bukowski (1959)

his is a signed copy of “Odyssey, Explorations in Contemporary Poetry” from 1959. Bukowski also included his classic little man with a bottle. Please note: This is a later signature.

Published in 1959, this issue contains two first appearances of early Charles Bukowski poems:

I Live Too Near The Slaughterhouse

When Hugo Wolf Went Mad

I Live Too Near The Slaughterhouse would not be collected in any books until 2007, when both the title and poem were edited in The People Look Like Flowers At Last.

When Hugo Wolf Went Mad would be one of Bukowski’s great early poems, appearing in Longshot Pomes for Broke Players (1961), A Bukowski Sampler (1969), The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over The Hills (1969), The Pleasures of the Damned (2007), and Essential Bukowski: Poetry (2016).

Odyssey Magazine was published out of Chicago and co-edited by R.R. Cuscaden and Ronald Offen, two early proponents of Bukowski’s work.

Cuscaden and Offen were also co-editors of Midwest. Bukowski appeared in four issues of the magazine between 1961 and 1964.

Cuscaden would publish Bukowski’s “Run with the Hunted” in 1962, while Offen, along with Jay Robert Nash, would publish Bukowski’s Cold Dogs in the Courtyard in 1965.

This issue also features an important historical essay by Offen reflecting on the new style of poetry was just beginning to take shape.

And the Contributors Notes mentions Bukowski as the recent co-editor of Harlequin – the magazine he edited with wife Barbara Frye before they divorced.

This copy has toning around the edges of the covers, some light staining on the rear, and some creases and bumps to the oversized covers. The interior pages also have light toning. All in all, in Very Good ++ condition.

Case 1