Bluebird

December 7, 2023

Over at MetaFilter, I spotted this post about a poem by Charles Bukowski. Hearing this poem evoked a lot of memories.

A few interesting notes: a long, long while ago I worked at the main library at Indiana University, where I studied as an undergrad. I was a library page, spending most of my time walking the aisles and re-shelving books (with the occasional use of a megaphone).

While I was working, I also did a bit of reading. I went so far as to hide a copy of The Twilight Zone Companion, so that I could resume reading on my next shift. But I also recall carrying around a lot of Bukowski’s novels and reading them over my lunch breaks (usually taken in a random aisle, somewhere in the stacks).

Interestingly, as much as I was into poetry, I never got that much into Bukowski’s poems – I gravitated more to his fiction. And also read a lot of John Fante, as a result.

Another memory: many years ago, I had a project entitled “A Poem From Us,” where I got a lot of friends (and strangers) to submit videos of themselves reading a favorite poem. I created a QR code, printed up and gave away a lot of stickers… and if anyone scanned that code, it would play a random video from one of the submissions.

Sadly, that project is no more. But one of the submissions I recall from that project was from my old friend Chelsea, who chose Bukowksi’s Bluebird: