Charles Bukowski was born in Andernach, Germany in August 16, 1920. His father was an American serviceman stationed in Germany. In 1945 he published his first poem. After failing to take the literary world by storm he retired from poetry and went on a decade long drunken “lost weekend”. After a spell in hospital for a near-fatal bleeding ulcer in 1955 he started to write again. By 1960 in order to support himself he took a job at the U.S. Post Office working as a letter filing clerk. He stayed there until 1969, all the time writing and publishing poetry. As his poems often deal with subjects like drinking, being hung over, gambling and sex. Time magazine in 1986 called him the "laureate of American lowlife". He died of leukemia on March 9, 1994, in San Pedro, California, aged 73. These poems come from a concert recorded in City Lights Poets Theater, San Francisco in 1973. He gave up live readings by the late 1970’s.
**Warning recorded from vinyl, surface noise**
