A Following

Bukowski’s approach is almost journalistic in its emphasis on bare reportage of fact with minimal interpretive overlay. His primary means to achieving this effect is the use of direct discourse—lines that indicate they reproduce speech verbatim through quotation marks. Earlier modernists like William Carlos Williams became interested in the poetic possibilities within the American vernacular, or common speech, to focus audience attention on the actual presence of the world beyond our ideas. Here Bukowski takes a similar tack by relating his anecdotal scene largely through the informal jive and shoptalk of his characters’ dialogue. The use of dialogue not only allows him to present real social mannerisms with a minimum of extraneous commentary, it also presents social relations themselves as they unfold in real time.

The poem’s comedic effects are largely a matter of the timing with which it juxtaposes statements, placing one line next to another without explicitly connecting them. This feature is most prominent when the third caller hurls an insult at Chinaski at just those moments at which the reader is invited to reflect on his status as a writer. For instance, after being confronted about his drinking and confessing to it, the caller lets out, “CHINASKI’S AN ASSHOLE!” (Line 21).