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Free Thought | Bukowski
The Inherent Dangers of Cliques
It’s just one step from being in a gang
In a letter to Edward van Aelstyn in 1963 (editor of literary magazine Northwest Review), Charles Bukowski complained about how the editor of literary magazine The Outsider, Jon Webb, had given too much space to Robert Creely and his friends.
Creely was associated with the Black Mountain Poets. A group of poets who attended or taught at the Black Mountain College in North Carolina in the 1950s. If you’re familiar with Bukowski, you can probably guess what he thought of such a school of thought.
Bukowski accused the Creelyites, as he called them, of lacking the necessary experience to be poets. He felt they lacked the grit and immediacy of lived experience. That they cocooned themselves in literary circles and knew nothing of real life.
In his letter to Edward van Aelstyn, he concluded that schools of thought, be it music, art, literature, or sculpture, are formed because “Individuals are too weak to fail alone”.
Which was why, when one poet (or any artist) from a certain school of thought was criticised, “there is a network of defense”. A collective shield that goes up to shelter them against criticism, meaning that they are unable to work alone without the…
