oh you dirty old man, we love you! ( )

It's Bukowski. No more needs to be said. ( )

One of Bukowski's worse books, featuring a high number of poems that fall flat and stories that refuse to compel. But seemingly nothing by Bukowski is utterly terrible, unlike with Ginsberg. ( )

Bukoski is a trashy class act. Trashy because he writes about defecating. Classy cuz he’s honest. Act because he wrote a lot a bullshit for money. This collection, released near the end of his life, contains the usual: drinking, women, shitting, being a fucking bum. We expect this kind of material. However, in this collection, there are a lot of poems about writing (being discovered), old age, work, fame (being recognized), and horse-races. This is new stuff. While I don’t give a shit about horse races, I do care about the existential concerns of a life-long drunk and compulsive writer, who somehow, drunk or otherwise, pulled out a good line or two. He conjures some stuff. On feeling inexplicably content: “good rare feelings come at the oddest times, like now as I tell you all of this,” he writes in poem for lost dogs. In tired in the afterdusk, he writes on reflection: “this is the space between spaces, this is when the ever-war relents for just a moment, this is when you consider the inconsiderate years...”

It’s all very nostalgia coated, but still funny. And like most writers/drunks, Bukoski is a mostly honest narrator; he writes about anything regardless of taboo. He does not care what you think, which continually draws us in because we know there are “golden nuggets” to be found. These qualities make up for his “ugly,” utilitarian writing that sometimes seems like “typewriting” (which he talks about often) instead of meaningful, god-inspired prose. ( )

A decent collection of Hank's works, but it's definitely not Hank at the top of his powers. ( )