TypeTown #15: "Do some living and get yourself a typewriter."
🎶 Charles Bukowski, Gwendolyn Brooks, Operation Mincement, and Liberace
Hola y buenos dias.
Settle in, please, for a trio of poets — each vastly different from the others.
We’re dispensing with the niceties quickly and crashing into the weekend with Charles Bukowski.
“I am a dangerous man when turned loose with a typewriter.”
Born in Germany in 1920, Bukowski’s life took him to the United States aged just three.
By the time he’d reached early adulthood, he’d moved from LA to New York.
There, he embarked on a booze-filled decade with the same kind of enthusiasm and commitment that later saw him knock out six novels, hundreds of short stories, and thousands of poems. Only a near-fatal ulcer forced him back to the desk.
“Do some living and get yourself a typewriter."
As the Academy of American Poets notes, Bukowski’s work is not for the faint of heart. “His writing often featured a depraved metropolitan environment, downtrodden members of American society, direct language, violence, and sexual imagery…”
Quite the combo.
Bukowski died in 1994, without ever achieving the type of fame in the US that he attained after his passing.
“You can do without a woman — but not a typewriter.”
I promise it calms down from here.
READ» The transgressive thrills of Charles Bukowski - The New Yorker
READ» Charles Bukowski profile - Academy of American Poets
READ» Charles Bukowski, American Author - Bukowski Dot Net
A different kind of trailblazer
“I am a writer perhaps because I am not a talker.”
Seventy-two years ago this month, another poet was making history.
On 1 May 1950, Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000) became the first Black poet to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize.
Her collection Annie Allen, which followed the life of a Black girl entering adulthood, received widespread praise — including from fellow poet Langston Hughes (who was featured TypeTown issue 7).
For the last 32 years of her life, Brooks was Poet Laureate of Illinois.
In 1976, she became the first Black woman inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
She was U.S. Poet Laureate in 1985-86.
She was commemorated on a 2012 USPS postage stamp.
And today, the Gwendolyn Brooks Center at Chicago State University continues to strengthen her legacy.
Not a bad collection of achievements, is it?
READ» Typewriter Tuesday: Gwendolyn Brooks - American Writers Museum
READ» Gwendolyn Brooks - Poetry Foundation
WATCH» An interview with Gwendolyn Brooks - HoCoPoLitSo (28 minutes)
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“Their eyes light up…”
Completing the poetry treble is Toluca Lake resident and TypeTown reader Bryan Mahoney, whose street writing was recently profiled in the Los Angeles Daily News.
“They see the carriage move, the bell go off, and suddenly there’s their name on a piece of paper, and their eyes light up. They’re really into it. I tell them every book that’s ever been written is right there in front of them on those typewriter keys.”
If you can’t make it to the streets of Burbank or Pasadena’s Old Town, you can order your own poem on Bryan’s website.
Is there a better way to use a 1935 Smith Corona Sterling? We doubt it.
Worth pausing the platen
📬 Did you know the first typewriter prototype was made with 11 piano keys? - Literary Hub
📬 Why this Tennessee woman still struggles saying goodbye to her typewriter repairman - Tennessean
📬 Typewriters at the Fannin County Museum of History - North Texas e-News
And finally… typewriters in the wild
In the new Netflix release Operation Mincemeat…
In this 1925 portrait from the James Van Der Zee Archive at The Metropolitan Museum of Art…
And in this Liberace skit from way back when…
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Until next time
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TypeTown is a fortnightly celebration of the typewriter’s place in modern (and not so modern) culture.