OLE No. 2 -- Early Classic Essay on Poetics by Charles Bukowski (1965)

Published in 1965, OLE No. 2 featured a classic Bukowski essay on Poetics:

A Rambling Essay On Poetics And The Bleeding Life Written While Drinking A Six-Pack (Tall)

The monumental essay would be published four more times, in the books A Bukowski Sampler (1969) as well as Portions from a Wine-Stained Notebook (2008), and in the journals Intermission Yearbook (1966) and Flash of Pasadena (1967).

Though he wrote novels, short stories and poems, some of Bukowski’s best work came in the form of essays. Anyone who has enjoyed reading Bukowski’s fiction will find these writings just as enjoyable.

Contributors include Charles Bukowski, d.a. levy, William Wantling, Harold Norse, Steve Richmond, Walter Lowenfels, Larry Eigner, Duane Locke, et al.

Ole was published by Doug Blazek, a fellow poet and early proponent of Bukowski’s work. They were friends and had a lengthy correspondence between 1964 to 1968. As with several other writers, the relationship ended abruptly after their first meeting in person.

Blazek published Bukowski in all eight issues of Ole between 1964 and 1967, and was responsible for Bukowski’s return to prose, publishing the chapbooks CONFESSIONS OF A MAN INSANE ENOUGH TO LIVE WITH BEASTS and ALL THE ASSHOLES IN THE WORLD AND MINE.

This copy is in near Very Good ++ condition with light wear and faint stains to the covers, and sunning to the spine. Overall, a very nice copy of this groundbreaking poetry journal published out of Bensenville, Illinois.

 Box 2