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Authors: Howard Sounes
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of time in the early 1950s when Bukowski had trouble getting anything published, and became so desperate he stooped to using emotional blackmail. ‘He wrote to me and said to please publish his poems, else he was going to commit suicide,’ says Judson Crews, who edited literary magazines in New Mexico. ‘I simply turned around and sent his poems right back. He obviously didn’t mean it, or else he didn’t really mean it.’
So when Barbara Frye, the editor of Harlequin magazine, advertised that she wanted poems from new writers, Bukowski promptly sent a bundle of material to her address in Wheeler, Texas. And he was delighted when she wrote back saying she accepted the poems for publication and, moreover, considered Bukowski the greatest poet since William Blake.
A correspondence developed that quickly became intimate. Barbara wrote that she was a single woman with a slight physical deformity, a problem with her neck which she feared might prevent her finding a husband. She repeated this sad story in a number of letters, becoming quite plaintive on the subject of being left on the shelf, and Bukowski couldn’t help feeling sorry for her, especially as she had been so kind about his work. One night he dashed off a letter to Texas telling Barbara to relax, for Christ’s sake, and stop worrying about not finding a husband. She sounded like a really nice girl and, in fact, come to that, he’d marry her himself! He forgot about it the next day, but Barbara replied that she accepted.
She wrote to say she was quitting her job in Wheeler and catching a bus to Los Angeles, giving details of when Bukowski should meet her at the bus terminal. In the meantime, she sent photographs of herself, and when Bukowski saw the photographs he really started to worry.
Barbara had two vertebrae missing from her neck which, together with a slight curvature of the spine, gave the impression she was permanently hunching her shoulders. It also meant she couldn’t turn her head. She looked very odd indeed, as her cousin Tom Frye explains: ‘Hers was an obvious deformity because you could tell it as far as you could see her. Her chin sat right on the ribs of her chest. She was a plain girl, short with no neck.’
Bukowski prepared himself for the worst, but when Barbara stepped down from the bus he didn’t think she looked that bad, certainly attractive enough to go to bed with. So he took her back to his apartment on North Westmoreland and that evening they tried to make love.
He worked away for what seemed hours, but no matter what he did, or what fantasy images he conjured up, he couldn’t come and it was a relief when Barbara climaxed and fell asleep. Bukowski lay awake afterwards, smoking cigarettes, wondering what the hell was wrong. Finally, he decided that Barbara had ‘a big pussy’. This was the real reason no man would marry the poor creature. It was nothing to do with her neck. Her pussy was so big a fellow couldn’t feel what he was doing.
‘Barbara, I understand,’ he said, when she woke the next morning. ‘But we’ll go through with it. I won’t back out.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, I mean, you’ve got this big pussy. You know, last night.’
‘What?’ she said. ‘You weren’t even in there.’
‘But what in the hell? You were moaning and groaning. I think you climaxed.’
‘I thought that was a new way of doing things … I didn’t know.’
‘You mean I wasn’t even inside of you?
‘No.’
Bukowski later confessed he was so sexually naïve that, unlessa woman placed his penis inside her, he was not at all sure what to do. They tried again, with Barbara guiding him in, and he was relieved to find the fit was snug and he was able to ejaculate. Satisfied everything was as it should be, they drove across the desert to Las Vegas, Nevada, where they married on 29 October, 1955.
Like most of the women in Bukowski’s life, Barbara became the subject of many poems and works of prose – most
So when Barbara Frye, the editor of Harlequin magazine, advertised that she wanted poems from new writers, Bukowski promptly sent a bundle of material to her address in Wheeler, Texas. And he was delighted when she wrote back saying she accepted the poems for publication and, moreover, considered Bukowski the greatest poet since William Blake.
A correspondence developed that quickly became intimate. Barbara wrote that she was a single woman with a slight physical deformity, a problem with her neck which she feared might prevent her finding a husband. She repeated this sad story in a number of letters, becoming quite plaintive on the subject of being left on the shelf, and Bukowski couldn’t help feeling sorry for her, especially as she had been so kind about his work. One night he dashed off a letter to Texas telling Barbara to relax, for Christ’s sake, and stop worrying about not finding a husband. She sounded like a really nice girl and, in fact, come to that, he’d marry her himself! He forgot about it the next day, but Barbara replied that she accepted.
She wrote to say she was quitting her job in Wheeler and catching a bus to Los Angeles, giving details of when Bukowski should meet her at the bus terminal. In the meantime, she sent photographs of herself, and when Bukowski saw the photographs he really started to worry.
Barbara had two vertebrae missing from her neck which, together with a slight curvature of the spine, gave the impression she was permanently hunching her shoulders. It also meant she couldn’t turn her head. She looked very odd indeed, as her cousin Tom Frye explains: ‘Hers was an obvious deformity because you could tell it as far as you could see her. Her chin sat right on the ribs of her chest. She was a plain girl, short with no neck.’
Bukowski prepared himself for the worst, but when Barbara stepped down from the bus he didn’t think she looked that bad, certainly attractive enough to go to bed with. So he took her back to his apartment on North Westmoreland and that evening they tried to make love.
He worked away for what seemed hours, but no matter what he did, or what fantasy images he conjured up, he couldn’t come and it was a relief when Barbara climaxed and fell asleep. Bukowski lay awake afterwards, smoking cigarettes, wondering what the hell was wrong. Finally, he decided that Barbara had ‘a big pussy’. This was the real reason no man would marry the poor creature. It was nothing to do with her neck. Her pussy was so big a fellow couldn’t feel what he was doing.
‘Barbara, I understand,’ he said, when she woke the next morning. ‘But we’ll go through with it. I won’t back out.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, I mean, you’ve got this big pussy. You know, last night.’
‘What?’ she said. ‘You weren’t even in there.’
‘But what in the hell? You were moaning and groaning. I think you climaxed.’
‘I thought that was a new way of doing things … I didn’t know.’
‘You mean I wasn’t even inside of you?
‘No.’
Bukowski later confessed he was so sexually naïve that, unlessa woman placed his penis inside her, he was not at all sure what to do. They tried again, with Barbara guiding him in, and he was relieved to find the fit was snug and he was able to ejaculate. Satisfied everything was as it should be, they drove across the desert to Las Vegas, Nevada, where they married on 29 October, 1955.
Like most of the women in Bukowski’s life, Barbara became the subject of many poems and works of prose – most
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