Before he’d become a posthumous social media symbol of Reddit-ish male angst, Bukowski wrestled with the pros and cons of a digital world.
Social media users are again debating the merits of Charles Bukowski, the late Los Angeles-based writer known for his poetry describing a coarse, often boorish version of American masculinity replete with drinking, gambling, and not-always-successful womanizing. The discussions came after screenwriter Melissa Turkington posted photos of a Bukowski book with the margins annotated by a critical reader, who added notes like “go to therapy dummy” next to poems in which Bukowski laments his difficulties in relationships.