You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense [Paperback]

Charles Bukowski (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 31, 2002

Book description to come.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

"You're a bum , he told me/ and you'll always be a bum . . . and it's too bad he's been dead/ so long/ for now he can't see/ how beautifully I've succeeded/ at/ that." True to his words, this prolific poet loves to play the oversexed bum, continually lashing out at other writers, the rich, and anyone who fails to appreciate his brilliance. This collection takes a new turn, though, as Bukowskinow in his sixtieslooks back on some tender memories of youth. Other redeeming features include a self-mocking humor and a love for cats. For larger collections, and those whose readers are not easily offended by four-letter words. Rochelle Ratner, formerly Poetry Editor, "Soho Weekly News," New York
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

16-bit Intel 8088 Chip
1813-1883
3 A.m. Games
About The Pen Conference
Another Casualty
Bad Times At The 3rd And Vermont Hotel
Beasts Bounding Through Time
The Beautiful Lady Editor
The Blade
The Boil
Bumming With Jane
A Cat Is A Cat Is A Cat Is A Cat
The Chemistry Of Things
Close To Greatness
Coffee
Concrete
Cornered
The Crazy Truth
Darkness
The Death Of A Splendid Neighborhood
Death Sat On My Knee And Cracked With Laughter
Downtown L.a.
Drive Through Hell
Driving Test
Education
Emily Bukowski
Escape
Everybody Talks Too Much
Final Story
The Finest Of The Breed
A Following
For My Ivy League Friends
For The Concerned
Forget It
Fractional Note
The Freeway Life
Friends Within The Darkness
From An Old Dog In His Cups
A Funny Guy
Garbage
Gay Paree
Glenn Miller
Gone
A Good Gang, After All
A Good Time
Hard Times
Help Wanted
Helping The Old
Hot
How Is Your Heart
Huh
I Meet The Famous Poet
I Thought The Stuff Tasted Worse Than Usual
I'll Take It
I'm Not A Misogynist
Invasion
It's Funny, Isn't It? #1
It's Funny, Isn't It? #2
It's Ours
January
Jon Edgar Webb
The Lady In The Castle
The Last Shot
Late Late Late Poem
Let 'em Go
Let's Make A Deal
Longshot
The Lost Generation
Love Poem To A Stripper
The Magic Curse
Magic Machine
A Magician, Gone
The Man In The Brown Suit
Marching Through Georgia
The Master Plan
Me And My Buddy
Miracle
Murder
My Buddy (1)
My First Affair With That Older Woman
My Friend, The Parking Lot Attendant
My Non-ambitious Ambition
My Vanishing Act
Nervous People
No Help For That
No Nonsense
A Non-urgent Poem
Not Listed
O Tempora! O Mores!
Oh Yes
An Ordinary Poem
Our Laughter Is Muted By Their Agony
Over Done
P.o. Box 11946, Fresno, Calif. 93776
Party's Over
The Passing Of A Great One
The Player
Poor Al
Practice
Putrefaction
Quiet
Red Mercedes
Relentless As The Tarantula
Retired
Rift
Seize The Day
Shoes
The Shrinking Island
Some Suggestions
Someday I'm Going To Write A Primer For Crippled Saints ...
Song
Starting Fast
Sticks And Stones ...
The Still Trapeze
The Stride
Sunny Side Down
Supposedly Famous
Termites Of The Page
Thank You
That's Why Funerals Are So Sad
Their Night
This
Those Girls We Followed Home
Together
A Tragic Meeting
Trashcan Lives
True
Trying To Make It
Wearing The Collar
Well, That's The Way It Is
What Am I Doing
Whorehouse
The Wine Of Forever
Working
Working It Out
Working Out
You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense
Zero
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder® --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Black Sparrow Press (May 31, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0876856830
• ISBN-13: 978-0876856833
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #31,227 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #67 in Books > Literature & Fiction > United States > Poetry

More About the Author

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).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hank is top rank, March 22, 2000

By 

George Schaefer - See all my reviews

This review is from: You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense (Paperback)

A collection of poems by Charles Bukowski is always a great joy. I followed his career since I was in high school back in the early 80s. He wrote a series of short stories for High Times magazine which I eagerly devoured. Then I moved on to his poetry. This collection: You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense is from 1986 when Buk was already a bit older and more reflective. This is around the time that his work began to reveal a degree of tenderness to go with his raw tough edged muse. Many say he lost it at this point. I disagree with that assessment. True it does not display the intense passion of Love Is A Dog From Hell but it is a great work on its own merit. Open it to any page and start reading. This is still vintage Hank. Aging Buk still has more blood and guts than most poets achieve ever. Anyone can just scream and curse. Bukowski obviously achieved something greater than that. And given how some other postal workers turned out, we should be grateful that Buk took to firing poems instead of bullets. Two thumbs up!

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I hate poetry, so naturally Bukowski's poetry works for me, June 26, 2006

By 

Jeremy S. Simmons "Teaching Fellow" (Eugene, Oregon) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense (Paperback)

I love Bukowski's fiction, its straightforward, unadorned, yet precise diction, and its degraded, yet implacable hero(es?).

Poetry, to me, has always seemed a florid waste of time, and a lazy man's game. It seems like shorthand at its best moments.

But I can't get over the fact that this guy, while making fun of the form, is able to nail his little portraits with alarming consistency.

Some of these, like "My Ivy League Friends," are narrative, mean and straight.

Others, still eschewing metaphor, are humming, man-shaped bells, like "No Help For That."

There are some duds, and I won't bother pointing to them because they'll be obvious when you come to them.

But, I like this guy a lot. He's real, even when he does his best to avoid it.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Golden Years Epiphanies, March 17, 2007

By 

Amazedbylife (USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense (Paperback)

Success and acclaim might damage some artists. They had the opposite effect on Bukowski. Once he felt he was getting the recognition he deserved, a lot of the bitter hatefulness fell away, and his brilliance grew brighter. This volume goes well with "The Last Night of the Earth Poems," the final volume published in his lifetime.