"The Walt Whitman of Los Angeles."--Joyce Carol Oates, bestselling author
"He brought everybody down to earth, even the angels."--Leonard Cohen, songwriter
Septuagenarian Stew is a combination of poetry and stories written by Charles Bukowski that delve into the lives of different people on the backstreets of Los Angeles. He writes of the housewife, the bum, the gambler and the celebrity to evoke a portrait of Los Angeles.
HE WAS never a very good suicide. 'I gave it a go now and then but something always used to go wrong.' As we stand on the brink of war and global recession, what better than to trash the poll tax demand, order a hat trick of tequilas and settle down with an uplifting collection from Bukowski? These poems and prose are so clean and sparse one almost wants to rummage through Bukowski's bin for all the adjectives and adverbs...
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This is my second favorite volume of Bukowski. I know this because it has the second greatest number of pages dog-eared over so I can find them again. Why do I like it? OK, it is because when I read most modern stuff, or watch modern films for that matter, I wonder what planet they are living on. It is seldom anything I recognise. When I read Bukowski, either the poems or the short stories or the novels, I recognise the...
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In the previous review I was telling that this book was published in spanish but ONLY the stories, not the poems. I can't understand why the guys at Anagrama did this. I cant understand why none of Bukowski poetry books are published in spanish either. And I say that this book is good, not Buk best, but good. (you'll wonder why 5 stars then? Because the good books deserve 10 or more stars)
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In this collection, more than others, I think, he writes alot about the process of writing, about how his life has changed since he became a professional writer, and of course he beats up on the "writing" community, and he has some of the most inspiring (seriously) pieces about contemporary literature around. The Rape of The Holy Mother is like a manifesto for the new poet. He's got that same humour and touching bite...
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listen to the wisdom of a septuagenarian poet! honest to the bone...tragic, funny, searching to find a space in this absurdity we call life...and death. after almost 40 years of writing poetry, and surviving it, buk closes out his career with this collection of gems.
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