Come On In!: New Poems

Description

Bukowski's unmistakable charisma - an ex-down-and-outer who wrote of booze and loneliness in maverick, confident free verse - made him one of the world's most popular poets long before he died in 1994. More than a decade later, death has not slowed his production. This collection is selected from an archive of verse that the author left to be published after his death. It includes poems of love and sex, advice to so-called losers (as he once was) to have confidence in themselves (as he did), gambling laments and humbling poems accepting his own imminent ultimate full stop.

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, and raised in Los Angeles, where he lived 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).

* The thing about Bukowski is, when you read what he has to say, he's right. Sean Penn * We all knew Bukowski was a tough guy, but who would have guessed that even the grave could not shut him up? Billy Collins * Full of sad, hilarious lamentation and schadenfreude. As usual, not for the kiddies. But for the adults, God, yes. Booklist * In an age of conformity Bukowski wrote about the people nobody wanted to be: the ugly, the selfish, the lonely, the mad. Observer * A laureate of American low life. Time