It Catches My Heart in Its Hands
The 1963 Loujon Press collection, the other significant pre-Black Sparrow book.
Read our take
A Bukowski Sampler
A selection of Bukowski chosen by another editor to introduce him to strangers: eighty stapled pages, four hundred copies, printed in Madison, Wisconsin.
- 1969
About Charles Bukowski
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeA Bukowski Sampler was published by Quixote Press in Madison, Wisconsin in July 1969, edited and introduced by the small-press poet and editor Douglas Blazek. It is eighty pages, saddle-stapled in printed wrappers, in an edition of four hundred copies, with illustrations by Bukowski. At the time Bukowski was forty-eight, still sorting mail at the Terminal Annex post office, and had published mostly in mimeographed magazines. Blazek assembled it as an introduction, drawing on work that was spread across dozens of magazines, for readers who had never come across the name.
The story, in more detail
Douglas Blazek edited Ole, one of the mimeograph magazines that carried Bukowski through the 1960s, and knew the work as it appeared. What he assembled was a sampler in the plain sense: a short introduction to a writer whose poems were spread across dozens of magazines with print runs in the hundreds.
Quixote Press printed four hundred copies. Two further editions followed, from Druid Books in 1971 and 1973. The standard Bukowski bibliographies list it as Dorbin A14 and Krumhansl 30.
Themes and analysis
The courtyard below the window
The grand title, The State of World Affairs from a 3rd Floor Window, promises a survey that the speaker's narrow outlook cannot deliver. A dog and pigeon keep circling while his thoughts leap toward distant landscapes and nuclear destruction. His wait for something artistically impressive becomes the poem's subject: uneventful watching supplies the material he considers inadequate. The final reassurance about the bombs is comically unsupported by the courtyard. His judgments of the woman below also expose a restricted, objectifying gaze, not an observer whose elevated position grants reliable authority.
The poems in her notebook
A Literary Romance turns correspondence into an encounter in which the narrator's expectations keep failing. The apple and notebook interrupt the seductive promise he has read into her poems. When he declares the poems bad, readers receive his verdict rather than the poems themselves: the narrative reserves critical authority for him. His own exhaustion, lateness and aging complicate that superior stance. The final generalization linking sexual experience to literary ability exposes the speaker's misogyny; it need not be accepted as the poem's lesson, or as evidence about a real woman's writing.
Why we recommend it
An introduction assembled by an insider
Douglas Blazek had been printing Bukowski in his own magazine for years, and chose what a newcomer should read first.
A 1960s small press in the object
Eighty stapled pages, four hundred copies, the author's own drawings — the physical form the work took before Black Sparrow.
Writing beside the author’s illustrations
Bukowski’s drawings give the introductory selection a visual element beyond the assembled prose and poems.
What this book explores
Timeline
1969
Quixote Press publishes the book in Madison in July, in an edition of four hundred copies.
1970
Bukowski leaves the post office in January to write full time.
1971
Druid Books issues a second edition, and a third in 1973.
Book editions
Paperback
- Paperback
- Quixote Press, Madison
- 1969
Paperback
- Paperback
- Druid Books
- 1971
Paperback
- Paperback
- Druid Books
- 1973
Reader reviews
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The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills
The 1969 Black Sparrow collection, published the same year, that began the long partnership.
Read our takeA Bukowski Sampler: frequently asked questions
What is A Bukowski Sampler?
A selection of Charles Bukowski's poems and prose published by Quixote Press in Madison, Wisconsin in July 1969, edited and introduced by Douglas Blazek.
Who was Douglas Blazek?
A poet and small-press editor who ran the mimeographed magazine Ole, which printed Bukowski frequently in the 1960s. He chose the contents of this book and wrote its introduction.
How rare is it?
The first edition was four hundred copies. Druid Books reprinted it in 1971 and 1973, so three editions exist, all small.
Does it have an ISBN?
No. It was published in 1969 by a small press before ISBNs were in general use, and the two later editions carry none either.
Where does it sit in his career?
Right at the turn. Bukowski was still working nights at the post office in 1969 and left in January 1970, once Black Sparrow Press guaranteed him a hundred dollars a month.
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References
References
The sources below include the primary text, editions, scholarship, archival materials, and other records that informed this page. They document A Bukowski Sampler, its publication, and its place in literary history.
1A Bukowski Sampler
NovelCharles Bukowski, 1969Used forThe primary text represented by this page, used for descriptions of the work’s contents and for any quoted passages shown here.
2Charles Bukowski: books and chapbooks (Verdant Press checklist)
WebsiteUsed forThe checklist entry: publisher, month, format, page count, print run, introduction and illustrations, with the Dorbin and Krumhansl numbers.
3Charles Bukowski timeline (bukowski.net)
WebsiteUsed forWhere the book falls in the working chronology.
4Charles Bukowski (Poetry Foundation)
WebsiteUsed forThe small-magazine years and the move to Black Sparrow.
5Charles Bukowski
BiographyReaktion Books, 2012Used forThe 1960s mimeograph scene and Bukowski's place in it.
6Burning in Water Drowning in Flame — World Affairs and Literary Romance transcriptions
WebsiteZanotowane.pl (third-party Literature Online transcription)Used forComplete public transcriptions of The State of World Affairs from a 3rd Floor Window and A Literary Romance, identified on the page as texts from the 1997 Burning in Water Drowning in Flame. Not a facsimile or line-by-line collation of the 1969 Sampler.
7A Bukowski Sampler — collection contents
WebsiteCharles Bukowski Poem and Story DatabaseUsed forSpecialist contents locate the two poems in the 1969 Sampler at pp. 27 and 29; bibliographic confirmation, not primary poem text.
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Why these sources are here
The primary text is the baseline reference for every book page. Additional references document publication history, interpretation, and historical context where that evidence is available.
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