Genius is the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way

I was driving in this morning behind a car with a license plate from Iowa (why do I find this relevant?) that had the bumper sticker: “I’d rather be reading Bukowski.” That’s pretty impressive. I’ve seen “I’d rather be dancing” “I’d rather be bird-watching” “I’d rather be surfing” – in fact, it seems people would rather do anything but drive. But reading Bukowski?

I have to think that the person picked up a tome of Bukowski at the writing program at U of Iowa. How else do you get from Des Moines to Bukowski? This is a guy whose books of poetry do not collect dust on your average shelf (including mine), even one with great literary aspirations (not mine). They’re not “pretty” poems, and his life was tough tough tough (apart from being beaten routinely by his dad, he had absolutely the worst case of acne ever seen by the medical profession), nor had he any connection that I know of to academia—that place where self-selected great thinkers determine what is literature and what is not.

But there he is, on a bumper sticker. Bukowski is credited with the statement that “genius is the ability to say profound things in a simple way.” It gives you hope, doesn’t it, that someone out there, every time she is driving her car, would rather be reading Bukowski.