The poem as Bukowski signed and dated it in November 1992. Nine years after his death it was printed under another title and in different words.
The published version, “the simple truth”, changes the title, the opening line and the ending. This sheet keeps the text Bukowski signed.
BUKOWSKI, Charles (1920–1994). “voice”. Computer printout of the poem, signed and dated “11-19-92”. San Pedro, 19 November 1992.
One leaf, letter size, printed on the recto only. Thirty-eight lines in seven stanzas below the poet’s typed name and address (“Charles Bukowski / 1148 W. Santa Cruz st. / San Pedro, CA 90731”), the title in lower case, signed and dated in black ink at the foot. With Scott Harrison’s signed letter of sale and guarantee, The Abandoned Planet Bookstore, San Francisco, 27 August 2002, one further leaf.
The Poem
A late poem, signed and dated in Bukowski’s seventy-third year and spoken throughout by a woman. She corrects and lectures her listener, traces the listener’s failings to an upbringing without “attention or love”, and announces that she is going downstairs to watch her favorite program, with a parting offer to bring something back up.
Printing History
No printing in Bukowski’s lifetime has been traced. The poem first appeared in a trade collection nine years after his death, retitled “the simple truth”, in Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way (New York: Ecco, 2003), and was reprinted in The Pleasures of the Damned (New York: Ecco, 2007).
The Text
The printed text departs from this sheet throughout. The title is new. The opening line “you don’t know how to do that” becomes “you just don’t know how to do it”. The speaker’s “the way you are” becomes “how limited you are”, the line “take your time!” is added after “see how easy it is!”, and her closing claim, “I tell you the / truth”, is expanded to “I tell you the simple truth about yourself”, the phrase that supplied the new title. Nineteen of the sheet’s thirty-eight lines are altered in print, and the printed text runs to forty-four lines.
PBS NewsHour reported in 2017 that the scholar Abel Debritto, working from Bukowski’s original manuscripts, had found many of the poems published after his death drastically altered, and that Debritto presented his edition Storm for the Living and the Dead as the first Bukowski collection in twenty-five years to reproduce the poems as originally written. The printed record does not show who made the changes to “voice”. This signed sheet preserves the poem as Bukowski dated it.
The Archive
Bukowski wrote on a computer in his last years. The Charles Bukowski Papers at the Huntington Library include the printout of “My First Computer Poem”, dated January 1991 (mssBUK 653), and record a one-page printout entitled “Voice” (mssBUK 2098).
Two small round spots of toning in the upper margin, the one at upper right more marked. Otherwise fine.
Provenance
Scott Harrison, The Abandoned Planet Bookstore, San Francisco; sold by him to Pamela Wise on 27 August 2002, as recorded in the accompanying signed letter of sale and guarantee; thereafter private collection.
“The manuscript/file copy of Charles Bukowski’s poem, ‘voice’. This poem Bukowski signed, dated and mailed in for publication. … This was the copy that he sent in for consideration for publication. I will guarantee its authenticity.”
— Scott Harrison, The Abandoned Planet Bookstore, 27 August 2002
Literature
Charles Bukowski, Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way. New Poems (New York: Ecco, 2003), pp. 334–335, as “the simple truth”.
Charles Bukowski, The Pleasures of the Damned. Poems, 1951–1993 (New York: Ecco, 2007), pp. 224–225, as “the simple truth”.
The Huntington Library, San Marino, Charles Bukowski Papers, mssBUK 1–1693, BUK 653 and BUK 2098.
Scott Harrison, The Abandoned Planet Bookstore, San Francisco, signed letter of sale and guarantee, 27 August 2002.
Elizabeth Flock, “Bukowski’s poems were mangled by editors after his death. Now you can read his originals”, PBS NewsHour, 6 November 2017.
Offered by Atelier Zweig LLC. Shipped insured, with signature on delivery.
