So You Want to Be a Writer?

Charles Bukowski wrote "so you want to be a writer?” near the end of his life. The poem was published in a posthumous collection called sifting through the madness for the Word, the line, the way (Ecco, 2003). The poem is lyrical and epistolatory. Influences on the poem include a long list of poets and authors who believed that writing was a unique calling that distinguished them from others. The message of the poem is that few people are fated to be writers. Those who are will not enjoy a tranquil life. Like much of Bukowski's work, "so you want to be a writer?” is cantankerous and politically incorrect—particularly by contemporary standards of the 2020s.

Poet Biography

Charles Bukowski was a prolific writer. He produced thousands of poems, several novels, and manifold nonfiction works during his career. At 40, Bukowski published his first collection of poems with a chapbook called Flower, Fist and Bestial Wail (1960). In the next decade, Bukowski published over 10 more books, including Notes of a Dirty Old Man (1969)—a selection of columns he wrote for the underground Los Angeles newspaper Open City.

During the 1960s, Bukowski met John Martin, the founder of Black Sparrow Press, who became Bukowski's primary publisher. In 1970, the press published Bukowski’s first novel, Post Office. Bukowski worked for the United States Postal Service for over 10 years. Black Sparrow Press published additional autobiographical novels by Bukowski. Women (1978) detailed Bukowski's contentious love life. Ham on Rye (1982) dealt with his difficult childhood and adolescence.

Bukowski's blunt, personal, and provocative aesthetic earned a cult following, critics, and significant literary fame. In 1973, he starred in a documentary film about his ostensibly wayward life simple called Bukowski. Over a decade later, he wrote the screenplay for the film Barfly (1987) featuring Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway.

Born in 1920 in Germany, Bukowski and his family moved to Los Angeles when he was two years old. An only child, Bukowski grew up in a working-class environment. His father was verbally and physically abusive and he was bullied in school. In high school, acne beset his body. A doctor said it was the worst case of acne vulgaris he ever witnessed. Bukowski found solace in the books at his local library. He admired transgressive authors—like John Fante—and outsider characters like the narrator of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s 1864 novella Notes from Underground.

After high school, Bukowski traveled to an array of American cities and took whatever jobs he could find. He worked for a department store, a warehouse, a boxcar yard, and, eventually, the United States Postal Service. He heavily drank, gambled, and cultivated a stormy sex life. Inevitably, Bukowski returned to Los Angeles. Eschewing academia and literary movements, Bukowski continually identified with his hard-bitten section of the city. In 1994, suffering from leukemia, Bukowski died in a Los Angeles-area hospital.

Poem Text

Bukowski, Charles. “so you want to be a writer?” 2003. Poetry Foundation.

Summary

Charles Bukowski's poem relates to the title—a simple question. "so you want to be a writer?” Bukowski asks, using poetic license and abstaining from common capitalization rules. The poem answers this question: Bukowski enumerates reasons why one should and should not become a writer. Considering this, this guide is written with the presumption that Bukowski the poet is also the speaker of the poem.

As the poem opens, Bukowski says a person should have an irresistible need to write. If the urge to write doesn’t "come bursting out” (Line 1) of a person’s body, then they shouldn’t do it. If they have to "sit for hours” (Line 8) and stare at their computer or typewriter, then they don’t have the visceral compulsion to write and shouldn’t pursue it. In the latter parts of the first stanza, Bukowski lists writing to obtain money, fame, or sex as signs someone shouldn’t be a writer.

The first line of the second stanza amends Bukowski’s belief that writing is a deep urge. He admits that someone might have to "wait for it to roar out” (Line 28). If, after "patiently” (Line 30) waiting, the clamor never emerges, then a person should “do something else” (Line 32) with their life.

In the third stanza, Bukowski states a writer shouldn’t require a premeditated audience. If someone has to read their work to their spouse, partner, parents, or "anybody at all” (Line 35), then they’re "not ready” (Line 36) to be a true writer.

For the first part of Stanza 4, Bukowski switches to his opinion on so-called writers. Countless people identify as writers even though they shouldn’t. These fake writers are "dull and boring and / pretentious” (Lines 40-41). They clog the shelves of libraries and put readers to sleep. In the latter part of the fourth stanza, Bukowski returns to his belief that the best writing is the result of an unavoidable force. A true writer writes as if their soul was a "rocket” (Line 50). They have to write; if they didn’t, they’d go crazy, commit suicide, or kill someone.

The notion of patience returns in Stanza 5. If writing is a person's destiny, it will happen when "it is truly time” (Line 58). The person with the knack for writing is passive: They don’t have to do anything. The writing will manifest on its own and continue until the person dies or the gift to write vanishes.

The final two stanzas are one line apiece. "there is no other way” (Line 63) reads Stanza 6. "and there never was” (Lines 64) concludes Stanza 7. Bukowski's prescription for a true writer is set in stone and not open to debate.