Reviews

'I shot out the moon
And then I shot out the stars one by one
And then
I shot out every light in town
And pretty soon it began to get dark
Real dark
Just the way I like it'

friskybird's review against another edition

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4.0

An earlier Bukowski outing, this book contains a mixture of some truly profound poetry, dirty and meandering thoughts on women, drink and horse races, and many poems somewhere in between that give a strong first impression of where his writing would grow from here. Some standouts include 'For Jane', 'I Thought of Ships, of Armies, Hanging On...', 'One for the Old Man', and 'Finish'.

goggle0612's review against another edition

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2.5

The poems were enjoyable to read, however, I didn’t find myself thinking about them much after putting down the book.

sunnie_gi's review against another edition

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dark reflective tense medium-paced

3.75

valzi's review against another edition

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3.0

I liked some poems very much, but I was bothered by the repetitiveness of theme, words, phrasing, and events. For example, in this collection, Bukowski rarely refers to women as anything but "whores" and, I believe, only ever uses the word "rape" to describe any action a lover performs.

I see skill here - wordcraft and sometimes poignant layers of meaning, but not always. I may simply be missing something - poetry is not my forte.

auroraevans's review against another edition

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3.0

"the few who are different
are eliminated quickly enough
by the police, by their mothers, their
brothers, others; by
themselves."

So... you might be thinking "girl this took you a year to read??!" Well, it's my car reading book aka the book I read when I get to places early. Clearly I am not early often

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