My memory of undying… Poetry and Motion PICTURES VIDEO Henry Charles Bukowski (August 16, 1920 March 9, 1994) was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. Bukowski’s writing was heavily influenced by the geography and atmosphere of his home city of Los Angeles, and is marked by an emphasis on the ordinary lives of poor Americans, the act of writing, alcohol, relationships with women, and the drudgery of work. A prolific author, Bukowski wrote thousands of poems, hundreds of short stories, and six novels, eventually having over 60 books in print. In 1986 Time called Bukowski a “laureate of American lowlife.” Bukowski was born as Heinrich Karl Bukowski in Andernach, Germany to Heinrich Bukowski and Katharina Fett. His mother was a native German who met his father, an American serviceman, after World War I had ended. Bukowski’s parents were Roman Catholic.[5] He was fond of claiming that he had been born out of wedlock, but Andernach records show that his parents were in fact married a month prior to his birth After the collapse of the German economy following the First World War, the family moved to the United States in 1923, originally settling in Baltimore, Maryland. To sound more American, Bukowski’s parents began calling him “Henry” and altered the pronunciation of the family name from Bu-kov-ski ([bu’kɔvski]) to Buk-cow-ski ([bu’kaʊski]; the surname is of Slavic origin). After saving money, the family moved to South Los Angeles in 1930, where his father’s …