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3.51 AVERAGE
3.51 AVERAGE
I got such intense misogynist vibes from Bukowski that I find him gross and am prejudiced against any talent he may have. Never finished. Not interested.
This is a good Bukowski poetry collection, and it really gives you the dirty old poet vibe, which I dig, because I love stories about misfits and misanthropes. The poems are sometimes amazing, but mostly just good, or funny, or even really good. There are a number of cats mentioned in these poems. I do not recall if any of those poems are reprinted in his outstanding collection that is specific to cats.
Here are some of the poems I thought were amazing:
The title is a reference to Sylvia Plath. The last verse is maybe about having survivled three decades, and maybe regretting it now.
The despair and the loathing of the human world through most of the poem up till the last few lines is so powerful it made my skin burn. The repetition of the line 'people are not good to each other' is like a death mantra that was beaten into someone year after year after year. But if you don't give up reading the poem, there is an amazing turn, and some mixture of love and confidence in the poets fellow human beings burbles up from the brain muck. Its maybe why they have not driven the blue Buick off of the cliff.
This poem has a similar turn to the one in The Crunch in its revelation where it looks like maybe there is a chance that people can be good to each other.
It shows that the neighbors, murders that they are (its a bad neighborhood), are human and compassionate, and because they know each other, they can see that humanity in each other. This turn makes the reader second guess themselves about their fears and assumptions about on folks who 'live on the wrong side of the tracks', as they say. Also, the fact that the poet (who is one of the people in the bad courtyard) claims the people across the street are worse makes us think that maybe the poet is missing a part of those people across the street, jusdt as we were missing a part of the people in the bad courtyard.
Here is one of my favorite funny poems.
Here are some of the poems I thought were amazing:
there once was a woman who put her head into an oven
terror finally becomes almost
bearable
but never quite
terror creeps like a cat
crawls like a cat
across my mind
I can hear the laughter of the masses
they are strong
they will survive
like the roach
never take your eyes off the roach
you’ll never see it again.
the masses are everywhere
they know how to do things:
they have sane and deadly angers
for sane and deadly
things.
I wish I were driving a blue 1952 Buick
or a dark blue 1942 Buick
or a blue 1932 Buick
over a cliff of hell and into the
sea.
The title is a reference to Sylvia Plath. The last verse is maybe about having survivled three decades, and maybe regretting it now.
The Crunch
too much
too little
too fat
too thin
or nobody.
laughter or
tears
haters
lovers
strangers with faces like
the backs of
thumb tacks
armies running through
streets of blood
waving winebottles
bayoneting and fucking
virgins.
or an old guy in a cheap room
with a photograph of M. Monroe.
there is a loneliness in this world so great
that you can see it in the slow movement of
the hands of a clock.
people so tired
mutilated
either by love or no love.
people just are not good to each other
one on one.
the rich are not good to the rich
the poor are not good to the poor.
we are afraid.
our educational system tells us
that we can all be
big-ass winners.
it hasn't told us
about the gutters
or the suicides.
or the terror of one person
aching in one place
alone
untouched
unspoken to
watering a plant.
people are not good to each other.
people are not good to each other.
people are not good to each other.
I suppose they never will be.
I don't ask them to be.
but sometimes I think about
it.
the beads will swing
the clouds will cloud
and the killer will behead the child
like taking a bite out of an ice cream cone.
too much
too little
too fat
too thin
or nobody
more haters than lovers.
people are not good to each other.
perhaps if they were
our deaths would not be so sad.
meanwhile I look at young girls
stems
flowers of chance.
there must be a way.
surely there must be a way we have not yet
thought of.
who put this brain inside of me?
it cries
it demands
it says that there is a chance.
it will not say
"no."
The despair and the loathing of the human world through most of the poem up till the last few lines is so powerful it made my skin burn. The repetition of the line 'people are not good to each other' is like a death mantra that was beaten into someone year after year after year. But if you don't give up reading the poem, there is an amazing turn, and some mixture of love and confidence in the poets fellow human beings burbles up from the brain muck. Its maybe why they have not driven the blue Buick off of the cliff.
in a neighborhood of murder
the roaches spit out
paper clips
and the helicopter circles and circles
smelling for blood
searchlights leering down into our
bedroom
5 guys in this court have pistols
another a
machete
we are all murderers and
alcoholics
but there are worse in the hotel
across the street
they sit in the green and white doorway
banal and depraved
waiting to be institutionalized
here we each have a small green plant
in the window
and when we fight with our women at 3 a.m.
we speak
softly
and on each porch
is a small dish of food
always eaten by morning
we presume
by the
cats.
This poem has a similar turn to the one in The Crunch in its revelation where it looks like maybe there is a chance that people can be good to each other.
It shows that the neighbors, murders that they are (its a bad neighborhood), are human and compassionate, and because they know each other, they can see that humanity in each other. This turn makes the reader second guess themselves about their fears and assumptions about on folks who 'live on the wrong side of the tracks', as they say. Also, the fact that the poet (who is one of the people in the bad courtyard) claims the people across the street are worse makes us think that maybe the poet is missing a part of those people across the street, jusdt as we were missing a part of the people in the bad courtyard.
Here is one of my favorite funny poems.
Groupie
I read last Saturday in the
redwoods outside of Santa Cruz
and I was about 3/4's finished
when I heard a long high scream
and a quite attractive
young girl came running toward me
long gown & divine eyes of fire
and she leaped up on the stage
and screamed: "I WANT YOU!
I WANT YOU! TAKE ME! TAKE
ME!"
I told her, "look, get the hell
away from me."
but she kept tearing at my
clothing and throwing herself
at me.
"where were you," I
asked her, "when I was living
on one candy bar a day and
sending short stories to the
Atlantic Monthly?"
she grabbed my balls and almost
twisted them off. her kisses
tasted like shitsoup.
2 women jumped up on the stage
and
carried her off into the
woods.
I could still hear her screams
as I began the next poem.
mabye, I thought, I should have
taken her on stage in front
of all those eyes.
but one can never be sure
whether it's good poetry or
bad acid.
i completely understand all the criticisms of bukowski, but good god, i love his poetry.
"but one can never be sure
whether it's good poetry or
bad acid."
Pretty good for an alcoholic pervert.
whether it's good poetry or
bad acid."
Pretty good for an alcoholic pervert.
challenging
dark
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
.25 rating for the pedophilia, sorry 🤷♀️
I never made it to the end of this book dropped it with only 30 pages left.
I mean if this man was alive in this time I have no doubt people would attack him in the most traditional way
Throw tomatoes!They are expensive though so I don't know maybe the best would have been not granting him attention all together so we would have been spared from passages of pretentiousness with huge flavour of SEXISM
Thank God I had to read Edgar Allen Poe at the same time at school so my winter blues got cured
Keep that in mind if you need an antidote
I mean if this man was alive in this time I have no doubt people would attack him in the most traditional way
Throw tomatoes!They are expensive though so I don't know maybe the best would have been not granting him attention all together so we would have been spared from passages of pretentiousness with huge flavour of SEXISM
Thank God I had to read Edgar Allen Poe at the same time at school so my winter blues got cured
Keep that in mind if you need an antidote
you have to give him that: the man has absolutely won when it comes to book titles. they are so good i keep falling for, let’s say “the idea of them”, thinking maybe, if i give him another chance this one will be different. i also have to say there are snippets here and there that make you stop and think and are actually good, great even. never a whole poem tho. only single verses, single lines. the other content consists of him screwing woman, him getting drunk, him getting beat up. this is a 400 page book. seriously, how is bukowski deemed on of THE great american poets? the man was a misogynist, racist and a pedophile. america explain.
dark
funny
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
you ever accidentally read an entire book,,
this one felt angrier than the last collection of bukowski poems like it was bitter and harsh but raw.
favorites: pacific telephone, one for old snaggle-tooth, defeat, luck, the crunch, melancholia, an unkind poem, ah..., as crazy as i ever was
this one felt angrier than the last collection of bukowski poems like it was bitter and harsh but raw.
favorites: pacific telephone, one for old snaggle-tooth, defeat, luck, the crunch, melancholia, an unkind poem, ah..., as crazy as i ever was