Listen to Charles Bukowski Give His Final Poetry Reading

Spread the love

Charles Bukowski poetry album Hostage, from his last reading.

This post includes affiliate links. If you purchase something through one of these links we will get a commission, which helps us maintain the site, at no extra cost to you.

Charles Bukowski gave his final poetry read in Redondo Beach, California, in April of 1980, four months before his 60th birthday. He was not too fond of giving poetry readings, and once it was no longer financially necessary, as he began to earn more royalties from his writing, he said goodbye to the alternately heckling and cheering crowds.

The reading was released as an album, called Hostage, in 1985. It is available from the label Rhino Word Beat, and can be streamed and is available on CD via Amazon, where oddly it is ranked in the “Pop” and “New Age Meditation Music” categories.

Bukowski steps onstage (so to speak, in reality sits down behind a small table) in seemingly good spirits, joking with the audience that he has “come from San Pedro to put Redondo Beach on the map.” The two are both in the Greater Los Angeles area, about a half hour drive from one another.

“Tonight is going to be a very dignified reading,” Bukowski continues, “I will not rejoin, or have rejoinders with the audience. I shall read you dignified poetry in a dignified way. We shall comport ourselves as ladies and gentlemen of culture. Thank you.”

The reading, which ends up being rowdy, as most of them were, is also available on DVD as a standalone, called The Last Straw, and as a box-set called Charles Bukowski: One Tough Mother, which pairs it with a 1979 Vancouver reading, itself sold as a standalone titled There’s Gonna Be a God Damned Riot in Here! That album is also available on Spotify (see below).

Bukowski references Vancouver during the first “Performance Art with the Audience” track, saying, “You guys are a real rowdy gang. Goddamn, I don’t know how I’m gonna handle you. You’re tougher than the Vancouver gang, you’re tougher than the New York gang, you’re tougher than the East Lansing, Michigan gang, and they were tough, man!”

You can also listen to the final, 1980 reading on Spotify below, with a track listing following with links to where the poems can be read online, if applicable, and notes on which books they appear in.

Note that the track “What I Have Seen,” which should read, “What Have I Seen,” is not included, with a duplicate track of “Jam” in its place, as apparently whoever added it to Spotify screwed up and no one has realized.

In the following clip from the Redondo Beach reading, you can hear him talk about Catullus, a Latin poet of the late Roman Republic who wrote not of classical heroes but rather of his own life, to whom the poem “What Have I Seen” is addressed.

Bukowski read the poem in Vancouver, the year before, as well, which you can listen to at the bottom of this post, also via Spotify.