sifting through the madness for the word, the line, the way New Poems

Not a lot to say about this book... Bukowski lived an interesting life, and his work seems to both celebrate and declaim his apparent depravity. His poetry itself is rather pedestrian in form, generally leaving the reader to deal with the subject-matter in a fairly raw state, without embellishment for its own sake. In other words, there is no rhyme or meter, simply words and stories that hover somewhere between poetry and prose. If you're a fan of free-verse, this may scratch an itch. If you're a fan of personal stories of individuals who live their lives almost exclusively to service their baser natures, then likely you'll love this collection. There are some sweeter entries, seemingly from later stages in the author's life, where he celebrates a more stable life and time with the same raw directness. Whether these serve as redemption of a sort, or merely a counterpoint is, I would say, for the reader to decide.

Reading Bukowski is like going through a pile of trash, knowing that there must be something. And there was: “SO YOU WANT TO BE A WRITER?” “About competition” “Unblinking grief” “The joke is on the sun” “Who needs it?” “The way things are” “Remember this” “Little poem” “Where was I?” “Heads without faces, seen in all the places” “The simple truth” “Here and now” “Displaced” “Escapade” “Regrets of a sort” “Unclassical symphony” “At last” “Misbegotten paradise” “NOBODY BUT YOU”