Linda King (born 1940) is an American sculptor, playwright and poet.[ She is best known for having been the girlfriend of American writer Charles Bukowski for several years in the early 1970s.][Watson, Joe. "Studio Visit", Phoenix New Times, October 14, 2004. Retrieved May 7, 2010. Archived, May 6, 2010.]
Personal life
Born in 1940, King grew up in Boulder, Utah.[ "Linda King" , Linda King Arts. Retrieved May 7, 2010;] She first married early in life, divorcing after 10 years.[Malone, Aubrey (2003). The Hunchback of East Hollywood: a Biography of Charles Bukowski, p.85, Critical Vision. , ] During the 1970s, King edited the literary magazine, Purr.[ "Tales of Bukowski & the Late 1960s LA Poetry Scene" , Sfstation. Retrieved May 7, 2010.] King was an actress before she became a sculptor and poet.[ King has two children.][
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Relationship With Charles Bukowski
In 1970, shortly after the end of her marriage, King met Charles Bukowski and offered to make a sculpture of his head.[ He accepted her offer, and they soon became romantically involved. King was 30 years old and Bukowski was about 20 years her senior when they started their relationship.][ The relationship has been documented as volatile, turbulent and even physically abusive. On one occasion in 1971, Bukowski broke her nose during an argument.][ On another occasion, King and Bukowski were accommodated at the City Lights apartment in San Francisco, after a reading at the City Lights Poets Theater.][Morgan, Bill (2003). The Beat Generation in San Francisco: a Literary Tour, p.63, City Lights Books. , ] By the following morning there was a broken window and a panel smashed in the door, and King had disappeared. Bukowski blamed her for the damage.[
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Bukowski's stage debut was as an actor in King’s play Only a Tenant in which she and Bukowski stage-read the first act at the Pasadena Museum of the Artist.[ Bookrags. "Gab Poetry, or Duck vs. Nightingale Music: Charles Bukowski". Asylum Arts. Robert Peters. 1994.]
Bukowski and King finally split up for good in 1975, when one night an intoxicated King threw Bukowski's typewriter and books onto the street, angry at his infidelities.[ The incident is detailed in Bukowski's novel Women, whose leading character, Lydia Vance, is based on King.][ The same year, King left Los Angeles for Phoenix, because of what she described as "one extended nervous breakdown".][
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She said of their relationship:
After Bukowski
King remarried and had a third child. The marriage also ended in divorce.[ She worked as a bartender, waitress, and a part-time care-giver for the elderly.][ She sold her own traditional portrait busts in clay, and published poems. One in particular, printed in 1997, references Bukowski: "I am the woman who knows for sure that Bukowski's balls were bigger I am the woman who knows that he liked hot chilies in his stew".][
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In 2004, Phoenix's Paper Heart Gallery featured her paintings, busts and poems, along with documentary films about Bukowski, in a show entitled Friends and Foes of Charles Bukowski.[
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In 2009, she sold 60 love letters written to her by Bukowski at auction in San Francisco's PBA Galleries.[ The same year, in order to be nearer to her grandchildren, King moved from Phoenix into an apartment in the Sunset District of San Francisco.][Berton, Justin. "Charles Bukowski love letters sold, maybe more", San Francisco Chronicle, September 8, 2009. Retrieved May 7, 2010.] In September 2009, she was one of the three poets in the presentation Tales of Bukowski & the Late 1960s LA Poetry Scene: A Reading & Report by Key Poet/Participants at Bird & Beckett Books & Records in San Francisco.[
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In addition to her bust of Bukowski, King also sculpted busts of Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Jack Micheline, Harold Norse, and A. D. Winans. Her play Singing Bullets was staged as part of a showcase by Phoenix's Metro Arts Institute.
King has also sold an edition of at least 15 bronzes of Bukowski.[
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Bibliography
King wrote a book Loving and Hating Bukowski.[ She also has written seven collections of poetry:
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Curled Inside the Curve of His Body…
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I Danced With a Man Last Night
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The Elephant Chronicles
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Exposed
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The Savageness of My Discontent
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Sweet and Dirty
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The World is Not What I Thought
Her poetry has been published in a wide variety of magazines, including The Bukowski Review and Wormwood Review.
External links
