Bone Pallace Ballet

Literary criticism's tendency to ignore Bukowski (Betting on the Muse, Pulp) might change with the posthumous publication of this typically massive collection of new poems, which follows the course of the poet's life from "As Young As We Were Ever Going to Get" (15) to "the big guy doesn't have me out of here yet" (251). Few poets have worked the open form as successfully as Bukowski, and he rarely as entrancingly as in this collection, in which tall-tales and parables reveal the world of the poet's lusts, seedy behavior, self-doubt, and wry observation. The first section shows the young Bukowski – who had "become a man" by getting off his dirtbike and shouting back to a rude driver (33), staring up the skirt of a sexy English teacher (23), and discovering the comfort of literature in his early dysfunctional home (37). The second section, "the streets were all I saw," tells stories from Bukowski's twenty-something years, when he spent his time starving "in a roominghouse and/ pretending to be a writer" (53). As anyone who's read Bukowski would expect, the poet romanticizes this life, the visits to whores (67), conversations overheard in barrooms, his low opinion of other people – remembering it as a time when there was a "feeling of/ joy and gamble in/ the air" (94). The third and fourth sections contain stories from his adulthood, everything from portraits of people he knew (157) to his frustration at having his poetry rejected (168, 186). Wonderfully realistic subject matter energizes these sections: "you circle back to the/ avenue/ park behind a taco/ stand, get out,/ walk to the counter,/ wait./ a heavy girl approaches./ she stands, looks at/ you./ you pretend to be composed./ 'coffee,' you say,/ 'small, black.'" In the final section are Bukowski's cherishable poems about getting old, grappling with his popular success. Receiving bags full of letters telling him "what a great writer I am," he confesses, "I read everything, dump every-/ thing, go about my/ business.// I am aware that no man is/ a 'great' writer" (255). It is this kind of hard-core humility that allows Bukowski to observe the world, have a laugh, and mind his own business – all the while reeling off memorable poems that don't take themselves too seriously. This autobiographical collection should do well with a wide range of readers. (June)

–Aaron Belz, 4/21/97
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