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

Charles Bukowski (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Black Sparrow Books (1980)
• ASIN: B000N7AH5I
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,600,973 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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 18 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

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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.