OLE No. 5 – Harold Norse Issue w/ Charles Bukowski Introduction (1966)

Published in 1966, OLE No. 5 was a special issue devoted entirely to Harold Norse.

Bukowski writes a long three-page introduction on Norse, not just his poetry but his down and out lifestyle as a writer in Europe. At this point, Bukowski hadn’t read enough Norse to feel good about writing the intro, so he worked with publisher Doug Blazek and Norse to obtain more.

In January 9, 1966, letter to Blazek, Bukowski wrote:

“for Norse—Ole issue. maybe I am being cruel? but I can’t say anything about a man on 2 or 3 poems. the few things I have seen of his are clearly very good but I would like to see more for my own good and for his. I do not judge poems as a critic out of learning but as a human being out of my own experience which must nec. be limited but which nevertheless contains truths and instincts and flowers and spiders and snakes and dreams and stinks which may apply to any man living anywhere, anytime.”

I’ve included the table of contents in the photos, but Norse contributes about 38 pages of poems to the issue. In addition to Bukowski, other writers that contribute essays and commentaries on Norse include James Baldwin, Daniel Richter, Thomas M. Livingston, George Raft, Nanos Valaoritis, John Raymond, Anais Nin, Paul Carroll, William S. Burroughs, John Wilcock, Tom McNamara, Jack Hirschman, Norman Thomas, William Carlos Williams.

Blazek was 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 Very Good ++ condition with some wear to the black covers. The binding is solid and the interior pages are clean.

Box 46