To the Whore Who Took My Poems
To the Whore Who Took My Poems - context Summary
Composed After Poem Theft
Published in 1969, this short poem is Bukowski's blunt, autobiographical reaction to a prostitute stealing twelve of his poems and some paintings. Addressed directly to the woman, it treats the loss as an attack on his creative survival more than a financial wrong. The piece frames recurring Bukowskian themes—poverty, alcohol, transactional relationships—against a stubborn claim that poems are irreplaceable. Its tone mixes anger, dark humor and wounded pride. It appears in The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills and turns a private grievance into plainspoken public complaint.
Read Complete AnalysesSome say we should keep personal remorse from the poem, stay abstract, and there is some reason in this, but Jesus; Twelve poems gone and I don't keep carbons and you have my paintings too, my best ones; Its stifling: Are you trying to crush me out like the rest of them? Why didn't you take my money? They usually do from the sleeping drunken pants sick in the corner. Next time take my left arm or a fifty, but not my poems: I'm not Shakespeare but sometime simply there won't be any more, abstract or otherwise; There'll always be money, and whores, and drunkards down to the last bomb, but as God said crossing his legs, I see where I have made plenty of poets but not so very much poetry.
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