SORRY,
BUKOWSKI
So I started this experiment that has been bubbling in me for
a long time. To submit a legends’ work and see who rejects
it. Partly because I wanted to feel better about my own stories
and to finally do what most writers have thought about doing but
didn’t have the balls to.
So I’d had five big lit journals on my radar for pushing
two years, five high cliffs, five on my shit list.
I’ve got all of Charles Bukowskis’ books except for
some of his beginning works in small lit journals because I can’t
afford them on E-bay. I first took one of his short story collections,
“The Most Beautiful Woman in Town”, published by City
Lights, circa 1967. As I skimmed through those drunk bard stories,
I pick one that’s semi- obscure, something all Bukowski,
but without the appearance of the age of when it was written.
I picked “Trouble With a Battery”, a story that’s
all Chuck, where he ends up fucking a girl in a bed above a bar
with her brother alongside them. I submit from a friends’
computer under the name of Chuck Bukow so no one will recognize
my email address. The others who don’t accept e-mail submissions
I strictly adhere to those guidelines, all those hoops, SASE,
title page, some aloof bio, the works. This is all pushing nine
months ago.
The first, Paris Review took the longest, approximately eight
months. I went to the mailbox and the envelope was thin and light.
Inside was the card they always give out, a one-size-fits-all
rejection slip. The second, Iowa Review I always liked because
Vonnegut used to edit for them now and again. But I always had
reservations about them, that workshop cult, that doesn’t
let the outside in. I get a rejection letter, but also something
in ink. “Too much vulgarity, you need to learn to say things
without expletives”. You hear that Charles, you don’t
know how to write without a fuck you thrown in now and again.
The third, Glimmer Train, I submitted to their contest with my
own money in tribute to this dead author whom I respect. They
don’t comment, just say that they regret they can’t
use it and list the winners. Women editors, they don’t get
it. The fourth was Tin House. I don’t really know if they
read much of anything. You know how it is, that aura that drips
off that little slip they give out all impersonal and what not.
Rejection number four. The fifth is Zoetropes’-All Story,
extremely heavy competition. They give options for films for accepted
stories. They also had given out written comments on the bottom
of my rejection slips. I’m thinking film, maybe they’d
remember “Barfly” with Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway,
jar their movie archived heads. I’m sorry Chuck, I’ve
never received a comment like this. “Too vulgar, don’t
submit here, not right, if this is an example of your best,”
and I quote all of this. Ouch.
So the poet laureate dies in these big modern lit mags. You five
are all indicted. All you writers out there, scribbling in your
caves take heart. Old Buck’s been put on the ash heap too.
P.L.
George
©
P.L. George 2006
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