Charles Bukowski – A Picture Book for Marina Louise Bukowski

Description

In a rare and tender departure from his usual grit and grime, Charles Bukowski delivers something closer to a father’s prayer in Renaissance No. 1. Titled “A Picture Book for Marina Louise Bukowski,” the illustrated prose-poem spans both the front and back covers—part comic strip, part illustrated screed. Dated January 3, 1966, it was clearly created when his daughter was just shy of 16 months. The “prologue” panel reads like an existential lullaby: “My god, who is to educate my daughter?” What follows is a handwritten, hand drawn sequence of reflections, drawings, and fables about men, women, lions, dogs, universities, and freeways. It’s funny, it’s crude, it’s bewildered—and it’s quietly touching. Bukowski the outsider becomes Bukowski the father, unsure of the world he’s brought a child into but trying, in his own way, to make some sense of it for her.

This issue also carries work by Allen Ginsberg (a 1961 poem titled “Five”), Anaïs Nin (excerpted from The Novel of the Future), Carol Berge (with a poem for Diane di Prima), Anselm Hollo, and others, including an “Old Fashioned Books” column by William Burroughs. Renaissance didn’t last long, but this issue burns bright as a relic of L.A.’s mid-‘60s countercultural scene — a full tabloid-size spread printed on cheap newsprint, oversized and unrepentant.

A must for Bukowski completists — the cover alone makes this one worth the wall space.