Edited by Abel Debritto, the definitive collection of poems from an influential writer whose transgressive legacy and raw, funny, and acutely observant writing has left an enduring mark on modern culture.Few writers have so brilliantly and poignantly conjured the desperation and absurdity of ordinary life as Charles Bukowski. Resonant with his powerful, perceptive voice, his visceral, hilarious, and transcendent poetry speaks to us as forcefully today as when it was written. Encompassing a wide range of subjects—from love to death and sex to writing—Bukowski’s unvarnished and self-deprecating verse illuminates the deepest and most enduring concerns of the human condition while remaining sharply aware of the day to day.With his acute eye for the ridiculous and the troubled, Bukowski speaks to the deepest longings and strangest predilections of the human experience. Gloomy yet hopeful, this is tough, unrelenting poetry touched by grace.This is Essential Bukowski.

Essential Bukowski Poetry

BUKOWSKI, CHARLES

Humor & Entertainment

Fourth Estate Ltd.

The first anthology of the author's autobiographical novels, stories, and poems is organized chronologically to chronicle the life of this counterculture hero. By the author of Post Office. National ad/promo.

Run With the Hunted: A Charles Bukowski Reader

Literature & Fiction

United States

Ecco/Harpercollins

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 and waning fame, he reflects on his travels, his gambling and drinking, working, not working, sex and love, eating, cats, and more.
Sifting Through is Bukowski at his most meditative – published posthumously, it’s completely non-performative, and gets to the heart of Bukowski’s lifelong pursuit of natural language and raw honesty.We recommend you read this as Bukowski wrote: by sifting through the madness for what hits you as the word, the line, the way.

sifting through the madness for the Word, the line, the way: new poems

Ecco

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

Throwing away the alarm clock my father always said, "early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." It was lights out at 8 p.m. in our house and we were up at dawn to the smell of coffee, frying bacon and scrambled eggs. My father followed this general routine for a lifetime and died young, broke, and, I think, not too wise. Taking note, I rejected his advice and it became, for me, late to bed and late to rise. Now, I'm not saying I've conquered the world but I've avoided numberless early traffic jams, bypassed some common pitfalls and have met some strange, wonderful people one of whom was myself -- someone my father never knew.

The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain: New Poems

Dramas & Plays

The second of five new books of unpublished poems from the late, great, Charles Bukowski, America's most imitated and influential poet –– 143 never–before–seen works of gritty, amusing, and inspiring verse.

Charles Bukowski is one of America's best-known contemporary writers of poetry and prose, and, many would claim, its most influential and imitated poet. He was born in Andernach, Germany, to an American soldier father and a German mother in 1920, and brought to the United States at the age of three. He was raised in Los Angeles and lived there for fifty years. He published his first story in 1944 when he was twenty-four and began writing poetry at the age of thirty-five. He died in San Pedro, California, on March 9, 1994, at the age of seventy-three, shortly after completing his last novel, Pulp (1994).
During his lifetime Bukowski published more than forty-five books of poetry and prose, including the novels Post Office (1971), Factotum (1975), Women (1978), Ham on Rye (1982), and Hollywood (1989). Among his most recent books are the posthumous editions of What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire: New Poems (1999), Open All Night: New Poems (2000), The Night Torn Mad with Footsteps: New Poems (2001), Sifting through the madness for the Word, the line, the way: New Poems (2003), and The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain: New Poems (2004).
All of his books have now been published in translation in more than a dozen languages, and his worldwide popularity remains undiminished. In the years to come Ecco will publish additional volumes of previously uncollected poetry and prose.

Slouching Toward Nirvana: New Poems

Humor & Satire

in this place
 there are the dead, the deadly and the dying.
 there is the cross, the builders of the cross and the burners of the
 cross.
 the pattern of my life forms like a cheap shadow
 on the wall before me.
 my love
 what is left of it
 now must crawl
 to wherever it can crawl.
 the strongest know that death is 
 final
 and the happiest are those gifted with the
 shortest journey.

The fourth of five new books of unpublished poems from the late, great, Charles Bukowski, America's most imitated and influential poet.
 Recent features in The New Yorker and on NPR's "Morning Edition" have proven that interest in Bukowski and his works is ever present.
 Charles Bukowski is considered the original.
 Praise for Bukowski:
 "Wordsworth, Whitman, William Carlos Williams and The Beats in their respective generations moved poetry toward a more natural language. Bukowski moved it a little farther." –– LA Times Book Review, 1994

Come On In!: New Poems

another comeback climbing back up out of the ooze, out of the thick black tar, rising up again, a modern Lazarus. you're amazed at your good fortune. somehow you've had more than your share of second chances. hell, accept it. what you have, you have. you walk and look in the bathroom mirror at an idiot's smile. you know your luck. some go down and never climb back up. something is being kind to you. you turn from the mirror and walk into the world. you find a chair, sit down, light a cigar. back from a thousand wars you look out from an open door into the silent night. Sibelius plays on the radio. nothing has been lost or destroyed. you blow smoke into the night, tug at your right ear. baby, right now, you've got it all.

Come On In!

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by BUKOWSKI, CHARLES. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by BUKOWSKI, CHARLES

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by BUKOWSKI, CHARLES. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Essential Bukowski Poetry

Run With the Hunted: A Charles Bukowski Reader

sifting through the madness for the Word, the line, the way: new poems

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

The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain: New Poems

The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain: New Poems

Slouching Toward Nirvana: New Poems

Slouching Toward Nirvana: New Poems

Come On In!: New Poems

Come On In!