Monday, 29 October 2012

Bukowski, Charles. Come on in! : new poems, New York : HarperCollins, 2006.

Charles Bukowski the poet was an important figure in the counter-culture days of the 1960s. 

This collection of new poems was published posthumously for Bukowski died in 1994.  An alcoholic, a social outcast, often poverty-stricken, Bukowski's subject matter was Los Angeles itself and the so-called losers or marginalised people 

Come on in! : new poems covers familiar territory...sex and alcohol and relationships.  An excerpt from his poem "down and out on the boardwalk' summarises his rather special gift:

she described
her boyfriend
in detail
to me
then took out her
                                                    guitar
                                                    and started
                                                    singing.


                                                    later that night
                                                    I sodomised her
                                                    and told her
                                                    not to
                                                    come
                                                    around any
                                                    more.

                                                    I got lucky:
                                                    she
                                                    didn't.                       

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