Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way: New Poems

by Charles Bukowski

Book Overview

One of the most recognizable poets of the last century, Charles Bukowski is simultaneously a common man and an icon of urban depravity. He uses strong, blunt language to describe life as he lives it, and through it all charts the mutations of morality in modern America. Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way is a treasure trove of confessional poetry written towards then end of Bukowski's life. With the overhang of failing health...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060568232
• ISBN13: 9780060568238
• Release Date: January 2004
• Publisher: Ecco Press
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.13 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

What Do Expect, The Guy Is Dead

If you're a Bukowski fan, you can't get enough. Just read it, it can't hurt except your pocket book, and if you're that skeptical go to the library. Is that one says about a great artist/author's work after they're dead? It's redundant and mediocre? It's just like when you like certain music and end-up collecting compilations. This book contains a lot of the old, but some new material and Bukowski carries on from the dead. By all means you should read his earlier works, but all is good too.

Getting the Hang of Being Dead?

Much better stuff than previous posthumous publications. Buk may eventually surpass Hemingway for more books published dead than alive.

Still doing his thing, better than all the others

But you should. This posthumous poetry book starts by a killer poem "so you want to be a writer": "If it doesnt come bursting out of you/ in spite of everything/ don't do it./ unless it comes unasked out of your/ heart and your mind and your mouth/ don't do it./ if you have to sit for hours..." and so on, a poem for all those writes who want to "do" it, then just don't.This is Bukowski's 6th poetry book published since his death, and since ECCO announces that it will be publishing more voulmes of uncollected poems, it seems probable that Bukowski's posthumous books of poetry will be greater than those he published in his life. The poems in this book, as well as in the last 6 books, are not really fillers, or second rate poems, they were not published because Bukowski and his publisher, were busy publishing other , more commercial or urgent books. As with all his books since "War all the time" published in 1984 (or even before that one) this book is a novel written in verse. The basic Buk's book is built around his alter ego, Chinasky, adn each book is the (autho) biography of this Chinasky. He writes to poets, writes about his father, mother, women, literary desert, and literary success late in life, working the factories and other underpaid jobs, horses, betting, death, the pleasure of being rich, and the problems of being famous. Each book includes one or more poems on these subjects and in a way they all tell the same story of Chinasky from different angles.I have just finished the first reading of this book, and I have really enjoyed it, not everything is perfect but Buk is still the best american poet ever, even when he is not at his best. If you don't have to read it, don't, but I think you should...

Exactly what you'd expect

Not for the timid.Not for those who read the reviews of others.Get it.Read it.And grab hold of the life you've got.