Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way
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from "neither Shakespeare nor Mickey Spillane"young young young, only wanting the Word, going mad in the streets and in the bars,brutal fights, broken glass, crazy women screaming inyour cheap room,you a familiar guest at the drunk tank, NorthAvenue 21, Lincoln Heightssifting through the madness for the Word, the line the way,hoping for a check from somewhere,dreaming of a letter from a great editor:"Chinaski, you don't know how long we've beenwaiting for you!"no chance at all.
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Found this randomly on the shelf at the library. Laughed a few times at random pages. Took it home and read it from cover to cover. Laughed a lot. Learned a lot about American society. By the end the poems started getting a bit repetitive.
Not a lot to say about this book... Bukowski lived an interesting life, and his work seems to both celebrate and declaim his apparent depravity. His poetry itself is rather pedestrian in form, generally leaving the reader to deal with the subject-matter in a fairly raw state, without embellishment for its own sake. In other words, there is no rhyme or meter, simply words and stories that hover somewhere between poetry and prose.
If you're a fan of free-verse, this may scratch an itch. If you're a fan of personal stories of individuals who live their lives almost exclusively to service their baser natures, then likely you'll love this collection.
There are some sweeter entries, seemingly from later stages in the author's life, where he celebrates a more stable life and time with the same raw directness. Whether these serve as redemption of a sort, or merely a counterpoint is, I would say, for the reader to decide.
