Adrianne Cooke

Samuel Uglow
ENG1302
05/07/16
i wanted to overthrow the government but all i brought down was somebody's wife
This poem is told in the perspective of a poet, presumably Bukowski himself, roughly 20
years before the publication of the poem. The poem itself has no rhyme scheme, and narrates the
lives of a poet, a tailor, and a pharmacist living their lives in Los Angeles in the mid 40s.
The poem itself is pretty great. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it, it was properly vulgar,
awful, and all around great. Bukowski is so angry and surly, it is great. This poem just
completely wrecks the government and American ideals. It is A1 content. 10/10 approve.
When I wrote my final paper over this poem I tried to read pretty far into it and make
connections that may or may not have been there but still. It sort of made sense???? There is
nothing very poetic about this poem, compared to his other poems, it is more of a story than
anything else. The only sort of poetic element to be found are symbols in the poem, one of these
being the fox hunt (located at the beginning and end of the poem), the mounted horsemen
represent the rich, and the fox represents the poor. This is meant to represent the unfair advantage
that the rich have over the poor, the men have horses to carry their weight and do the actual work
(horses supposedly representing the middle class), and the fox being chased even though it has
no advantages to help itself get out of the situation it is in. By reading this poem a reader can tell
just what Bukowski thought of the government in this time period. He is so angry. It is awesome.