Product Description

This second posthumous collection from Charles Bukowski takes readers deep into the raw, wild vein of writing that extends from the early 70s to the 1990s.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #225265 in Books
• Published on: 1999-12-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 409 pages

Customer Reviews

Brilliant - American, anarchic, gentle and wild and true
Poetry is always a private discovery, a secret, intimate 'wow!'. It can happen on the level of a single word, a line, an entire collection, or whole lifetime of work. I read poetry because I like surprises (if it helps you get an idea, I dabble and dip into Neruda, Thomas, both Hughes, bits of Heaney, Fenton and most of Walcott).

Discovering Bukowski (so I'm slow) has been the best surprise of my 36th year. I am delighted. I don't know how I got this far without him. I hug the book and walk round with it like a toddler with a blanket. NOT that it's a comfortable read - it gives me indigestion and keeps me awake at night, laughing and crying when I should be asleep. This book is a series of small, deft shocks. It's about drunks and tramps and whores - the ones on the street and the ones in publishing - about sinners and saints, sex and death, accidents, cars and the casualties of war in the 'ordinary café of the world'. It's even a bit about writing and how difficult it is to do - to write extraordinary things in ordinary language that hums between the covers even when not being read. Bukowski is fooling no one. He does it well. See for yourself!

Brutal but gripping
This is an amazing book of modern narrative poetry. Full of bad language, indecent images and the grit of a fairly shabby life, this ignores the grand old traditions of form and shape and tells it like it is. It's a Father Jack of a book (girls! drink! arse!).

Of course, if you like poetry done by the rules, you'll hate this. But I prefer a more conversational approach, where the focus is on imagery and a true to life description of feelings and emotions. This particular collection covers the young and old poet, so you can see his style develop, and see how the events of his life show through in his content. It is a very fine body of work and I heartedly recommend it.