CHARLES BUKOWSKI IN PRISON

Nun-age
photo by Danny O'Bryan

"You have to live a life in order to tell a life. It's better to tell it
because you are always in control. You're like God."

Spalding Gray


In early 2000 I taught for three years in Jefferson Community College and Technical School's prison progam in Oldam County, Kentucky. The following is from that time.

Indian summer ended abruptly in Central Kentucky yesterday. The sky was ominous with racing bands of dark clouds and the wind outside my office in the old Frankfort airport terminal stripped the recently turned leaves from the trees. Sheets of cold rain soon followed and I wasn’t in any mood to go to prison.

It was Fall break and school was officially out at Jefferson Community College where I teach in the prison program. But I told the prison coordinator last week I would go ahead and hold classes. I was in the middle of presenting my students with the literary antics of writer Charles Bukowski, the beat-down non-Beat who made poetry out of the most unpleasant situations. Something I think any thinking convict would appreciate.

Last week was devoted to parts of a video interview of Bukowski by Barbet Schroeder, one of the producers of “Barfly,” a 1987 movie starring Mickey Roark and Faye Dunaway, for which the author wrote the screen-play. Tonight was going to be devoted to the movie, which I’ve seen at least five times.

I was concerned over an incident that happened at the Kentucky State Reformatory over the weekend. A prisoner had sexually assaulted a female nurse. The man charged had been one of my students last semester. If I remembered right, he had written a rather violent poem glorifying his life of crime. This morning’s paper featured his photo with the headline. I recognized him and immediately thought about a TV program I had watched the previous night about the dangers of owning wild tigers.

But I was determined to teach my class despite the weather, which was getting worse. Large drops of cold rain struck my face as I mounted the steps of the prison’s medieval tower. By the time I reached the education building, which is on the far end of the yard, I was soaked like a water rat.


The men’s assignment was to write a two page paper on Bukowski’s short story “The Most Beautiful Women in Town,” an uncharacteristically warm Bukowski tale about his relationship with a bright and beautiful, self destructive woman. We did a round-robin with each man reading his paper aloud. The men were marvelous, reading their assignments, many which were carefully hand-written either because of the student’s inability to type or have access to computers or typewriters. Nothing is easy behind bars.

I complimented one man who wrote an exceptionally good paper. He told me he hadn’t finished the eighth grade.

“I’m from Boston. I ran away from home when I was 11 years old. I grew up in the “Combat Zone,” one of the worst sections of the city,” he said.

When I asked him how he had learned to write so well, he said that during one of his early prison stays when he was thrown into the hole (solitary confinement) he asked for something to read. The guards gave him a bible and a dictionary.

By the time we got around to the movie the yard was within a half-hour of closing, so we only had time for the first few scenes before the men had to return to their cells. It was during the part in the movie when Roark, as Bukowski and Faye Dunaway, as the gorgeous alcoholic Wanda sit and talk in their apartment after their first night of making love.

John Coltrane’s tenor is playing softly in the background and Wanda is showing off her legs and telling Hank, “If a man showed up with a fifth of whiskey I’d leave with him.”

The men were hanging on every word, every nuance of the film. They were reacting to all the lines and the movements of the actors. It was like the beginning of a good play. They were involved and I was seeing the movie for the first time.

Afterwards, I had a rare feeling of accomplishment and elation during my long walk back to my car through the prison’s yard. I had just reached a darkened area when I noticed a rather large, white and black, fluffy animal running along the path.
“Is that a skunk?,” I asked a nearby prisoner. “Yeah, we got at least two around here. They hang out with the cats. Don’t piss him off,” he replied.

When I got back to my office the first thing I did was grab a dictionary and read, “Skunk 2. (Colloq.) a despicable, offensive person.”

A perfect ending for a night of Charles Bukowski in prison.

Danny O'Bryan "Yardhog's Journals"
9/15/03