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Charles Bukowski – What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire | Review

Title: What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

Author: Charles Bukowski

Type: Poetry

Page Count/Review Word Count: 409

Rating: 8/10

Charles Bukowski – What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

Bukowski is back with another epic collection of idiosyncratic poetry. The poems published in the collection were written between 1970 and 1990, and they were part of an archive that the great poet left behind to be published after his death.

As always, it’s fascinating to see the way in which Bukowski used simple (and often profane) language in such a powerful way – his poems don’t read like Shakespeare, they read like Bukowski talked, and that’s what gives them their power. Bukowski wasn’t a poet or a novelist – he was a storyteller, and it barely matters whether you’re reading his prose or his poetry.

Take the first poem in the collection, for example – ‘my father and the bum‘. Bukowski had a troubled relationship with his father, who used to bully him as a child – here, we see his father’s pride, and the way in which the opinions of his friends weighed heavy on him. Bukowski says: “My father believed in work. He was proud to have a job. Sometimes he didn’t have a job and then he was very ashamed. He’d be so ashamed that he’d leave the house in the morning and then come back in the evening so the neighbours wouldn’t know.”

Charles Bukowski

Of course, it’s no secret that Bukowski hated his father – you would have too, the man, by all accounts, was a bastard. Just how extreme that hatred was is shown by his depiction of his father’s cruelty: “My father caught the baby mice – they were still alive and he flung them in to the flaming incinerator, one by one. The flames leaped out and I wanted to throw my father in there, but my being 10 years old made that impossible.”

But let’s get back to the book as a whole. It was published by Black Sparrow Press, the legendary poetry firm that was formed by John Martin, ostensibly to publish Bukowski’s work. According to Wikipedia (and Born in to This, a documentary about the poet), John Martin offered Bukowski $100 per month for life on the condition that he’d stop working for the post office and write full time. Bukowski agreed, and shortly afterwards started work on Post Office, his first novel which was inspired by his time with the company.

Someone random with a Bukowski tattoo on her side-boob…

Click here to buy What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire.

Charles Bukowski – The Pleasures of the Damned (Poems 1951-1993) | Review

Title: The Pleasures of the Damned

Author: Charles Bukowski

Type: Poetry

Page Count/Review Word Count: 506

Rating: 8/10

Charles Bukowski – The Pleasures of the Damned

This book promises ‘the best of the best of Bukowski‘, and it certainly doesn’t disappoint – then again, at over 500 pages, there’s a lot in there to choose from. However, there’s some new stuff too – some of the material was first published here, and its covers contain a sizable amount of the great poet’s work between his early, formative years and his final days, dying of leukemia after a lifetime of heavy drinking.

And, for once, the editor is almost as qualified as Bukowski himself to bring the collection together – his name is John Martin, and he was the editor of the Black Sparrow Press, which you might have heard of. If you’re in to poetry, odds are that you’ve read one of their books.

Now, I’ve got to admit here that so much, so far, is explained in the back of the book, but I figured that with 500 words I had the time to cover the blurb. Besides, it’s relevant. There’s just one quote in particular that I’d like to dwell on, though – Leonard Cohen said: ‘He brought everybody down to earth, even the angels.’ I think that’s a fair summary.

Charles Bukowski

Bukowski’s work is always unique, he just has a certain style that nobody else can imitate, though many have tried. He just writes about his everyday life, a life which generally consists of a mixture of bad jobs, women, booze, horses and unsavory and unhygienic situations.

It’s in the way that he says so much about himself by just illustrating a snapshot of the events that occur in his alcohol-riddled day-to-day life. He does it with lines like: “I think of devils in hell and stare at a beautiful vase of flowers as the woman in my bedroom angrily switches the light on and off.”

Bukowski’s poetry is kind on the mind, it’s both easy to read and highly intellectual, and the ever-present ghost of Hank Chinaski threads through all of his work like the mirror that it is. At times, we get rare glimpses of the pressure of being a writer: ‘A great writer remains in bed, shades down, doesn’t want to see anyone, doesn’t want to write anymore, doesn’t want to try anymore; the editors and publishers wonder: some say he’s insane, some say he’s dead; his wife now answers all the mail: “… he does not wish to …” and some others even walk up and down outside his house, look at the pulled-down shades; some even go up and ring the bell.’

Bukowski is an interesting character, a man with many faces, most of which are drunk. I strongly suggest that you check out some of his work and consider investing in a copy – once you find out just how he lived his life, you’ll wonder how he managed to survive in to his seventies and how such an old, cynical soul could have such a poetic voice.