o_190rdjfm016nc2151bib7h517kha.pdf

Jeffers is my God
interest in it. He was painfully aware that he had not
written anything of lasting value. However, his
second book appeared in October 1916, published
commercially by Macmillan; still Jeffers was not
satisfied with the poems it contained. But with the
publication of Tamar and Other Poems in 1924, Jeffers
began to be lauded as a great American original, and
critical acclaim was fulsom indeed. The following
year, Boni & Liveright brought out an expanded
edition which included the epic Roan Stallion – a
poem, almost conversational in style, brimming with
what was rapidly becoming Jeffers key imagery:
falcons, incest, blood and madness.
Jeffers words are bare
bones stripped of all pretention,
revealing the often stark and ugly
truth beneath. Life is seen
cosmically, from the nebulous
beginnings through apocalypse.
In this sense he is prophetic; his
treatment of humanity bordering
on the misanthropic. His entire
poetic universe is uneasy,
brooding and disdainful. He does
not talk about the modern world,
because he knows that
civilizations come and go, and
nothing is permanent.
That Jeffers inspired
Bukowski there is no doubt.
Hank actually took a line from Jeffers poem
Hellenistics for the title It Catches My Heart in its
Hands, which was published in 1963 by the Loujon
Press. For the still-obscure Charles Bukowski there
was much in Robinson Jeffers that he could get to
grips with. Bukowski was an outsider, as was Jeffers;
and neither thought very much of humanity. It
seemed to let them down time and again. Yet there
was an iron determination in both poets to succeed,
despite the loneliness and disappointments they went
through.
When his wife died in 1950, Jeffers
contemplated suicide. He began to drink heavily, but
it could never ease his pain. Of course, Bukowski had
his own pain, and you could say he spent a life-time
diluting it. The ritualistic beatings he took from his
father permanently scarred a childhood that was
deprived and lonesome. How can anyone come out of
that unmarked? Yet, as a mature writer, Bukowski
seemed to leave any lingering bitterness behind him,
for an increasing clarity in his poetry. And this is
where Jeffers influence seems most prominent, in
Bukowski’s later verse.
In a December 21, 1960 letter to Sheri Martinelli,
Bukowski writes:
“Do especially read Roan Stallion.
Robinson Jeffers. If you haven’t. Please do this for
me...”
And again to Martinelli in January 1961:
“I SAID, I COMMAND THEE:
READ ROAN STALLION.”
And in a hand-written p.s. to that
same letter:
“-there was
‘communication’ between horse
and woman (other than spiritual)
in Roan Stallion. Gd. Damn u,
Sheri, why don’t you READ this
book!”
And that said
‘communication’ is of an erotic
nature; not bestial, but rather
celestial. The heroine of the
poem, California, is a mystic; she
falls in love with the stallion and
regards it as Divine.
(I don’t want to elaborate
on this poem too much; I don’t
want to spoil anyone’s fun – and it’s more than fun
when you discover it yourself).
I think Bukowski loved Robinson Jeffers
mainly for the elder poet’s direct, non-lyrical
approach to verse. It’s encouraging to read heavy
themes that anyone can understand. And it is the best
way into Jeffers’ personal philosophy –Inhumanism.
Herein Jeffers takes his cue from Whitman and
Nietzsche, though he was criticized for being
misanthropic. He wished to leave the human world
behind and embrace nature to the limits of
experience. The intensity of his vision made him a
prophet, which nourished his isolation from the
human race.
And this is where Bukowski found the
darkness and insanity in Jeffers’ work. In
“Mockingbird Wish Me Luck” (Black Sparrow,
1972), Charles published the poem ‘he wrote in
lonely blood’:
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above...Robinson Jeffers