Slightly interesting, but not poetry. He sure did like meaningless line breaks. ( )

one-third of this
collection
is great.
another third
is pretty great
with
endings that fizzle.
the remaining are
fairly
useless.

I
say
this
only
because
Bukowski
would
just
love
that
a
28
year
old
peon
would
put
his
poems
into
fractions. ( )

I don't think I will read any more Bukowski. ( )

A fairly middling outing for Bukowski. Definitely not as bad as Septuagenarian Stew and not as good as Sifting Through Madness For The Word, The Line, The Way. I'm not sure there will ever be a collection of poetry by Bukowski that's as definitive as his great novel, Ham On Rye, but in the great scheme of things perhaps it doesn't matter. After all, I'd imagine if you put together all of his best poems in one book (including the immortal "Fire Station") it still wouldn't be definitive just because Bukowski spread his inspiration over so much more than just one book of poems. He wrote thousands of poems so when a book comes out it's just another snippet of that and what you get more often than not is poetry done the right way in a field so packed with poetry done the wrong way. ( )

Great stuff! Entertaining, hilarious, gut wrenching and in flashes perfectly relatable, all at different times and sometimes all together. Bukowski manages to capture the glory in being a bum, makes it a little less bad, and I'm looking forward to reading more about the horse races, the gambling, the whores and drunken nights behind the type writer.