Odyssey Vol 2, No. 1 -- Two Very Early Appearance Poems by Charles Bukowski (1959)

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

Odyssey Vol 2, No. 1 was published in 1959 and includes two early 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).

This issue also features an important historical essay by Ronald Offen reflecting on what would become the so-called “Meat School of Poetry.”

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

Cuscaden was the co-editor of Mainstream (1957), an early publisher of Richard Brautigan. Offen and Cuscaden were also co-editors of Odyssey: Explorations in contemporary poetry and the arts (1958-1959), which published the early work of Charles Bukowski, LeRoi Jones, David Ray, and others. Operating out of Chicago, he also published a chapbook series, Midwest Poetry Chapbooks, which included Bukowski's Run with the Hunted (1962).

This copy is in Very Good + condition with some browning to the covers and interior pages, creases to the oversized covers. The binding is solid and the pages are clean. I’ve seen a couple of copies of this issue in the past and the edit to When Hugo Wolf Went Mad appeared in those, so I believe it was made by the editor.

All in all, a solid and complete copy of this early Bukowski item.

Box 31