Bone Palace Ballet: New Poems [Paperback]

Charles Bukowski (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1997

This is a collection of 175 previously unpublished works by Bukowski. It contains yarns about his childhood in the Depression and his early literary passions, his apprentice days as a hard-drinking, starving poetic aspirant, and his later years when he looks back at fate with defiance.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This posthumous collection of poems by Bukowski (Pulp, LJ 6/1/96) is a wonderful swan song. The settings remain mostly the same?taprooms, race tracks, and back alleys?and the themes largely unchanged?fragile relationships, heavy drinking, and the art of writing. However, one new theme that surfaces in this collection is the acceptance of death and old age. Bukowski knows he faces death and seeks "the grave to find a more/ comfortable/ position." He realizes that death will be his final act, and he will be "alone but not lonely." Accepting it, he writes with clarity and precision?"I will write the stuff only for myself/ and to myself"?and goes on to realize that in death he will "no longer defile these pages/ with my raw and simple/ lines." The only drawback of this work lies in a handful of weaker poems that show Bukowski attempting to be clever, and this is when he fails. For the most part, however, readers will see Bukowski at his best. Highly recommended.?Tim Gavin, Episcopal Acad., Merion, Pa.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Legend is that Bukowski--spiritual papa of poetry slams, perfpos (i.e., performance poets), and any other aggressively populist poetry manifestations of today--used to haul his ugly mug and a case of beer on stage and read until beer or consciousness was gone. If it isn't true, it ought to be, for it is the kind of bad boy gesture out of which he constructed his poetry, his prose, and certainly his fictional alter ego, Henry Chinaski, if not his own life. The 175 previously uncollected poems gathered here appear mostly in biochronological order, beginning with poems about Bukowski-Chinaski's childhood and ending with poems reflecting on his old age. Each poem is a little nugget of roughneck-intellectual autobiography or attitude (in the contemporary slang sense of the word; it is easy to imagine that, if he became a writer, Bart Simpson would be another Charles Bukowski), and each is pretty enjoyable, especially with a brew at hand. Ray Olson

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 300 pages
• Publisher: Black Sparrow Press; 1st edition (May 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1574230298
• ISBN-13: 978-1574230291
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,058,268 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

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Unconventional Thriller, July 30, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Bone Palace Ballet: New Poems (Paperback)

It's called "bone pallace ballet" so it's not a book of poems to read to your girlfriend under a willow tree at four in the afternoon, unless of course, she's got a wicked sense of humor. This book's hilarious, but chillingly realistic accounts of city life leave the reader dazed. It's like a high without the chemicals.

He doesn't follow any modern patterns of poetry, but he reserves images for when they're necessary. We can only sense what he wants us to sense, when he wants us to feel it, see it, hear it, taste it. Bukowski takes you on a wild ride, leads you around, and in the end, you thank him for it.

And if you're a writer out there, read "The Word"! I haven't read it in a while, but I still remember certain lines, an image I could never have thought of, but he throws it in there, and it looks effortless like an acrobat, "It can't hold your cigarette for you" and then the rush of "getting it down, getting it down, getting it down." Read it, twice, you'll love it.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Scraps left behind., June 5, 2000

By 

D. Harrison (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bone Palace Ballet: New Poems (Paperback)

This book is only a shadow of what Bukowski can do. I was very dissapointed with his wife being so hell bent on releasing his unpublished work. These poems are all ones that he would have never released had he been alive. They have no charm and show nothing of his talent. His wife I guess thought they were good enough to be released. I beg to differ. If you want a good collection of his poems from the last years of his life check out Betting on the muse which is an amazing book.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Chinaski, you never had it!!!, July 2, 2006

By 

Christopher B. Priest "Filthy Thieving Brogue" (Mannheim, Germany) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bone Palace Ballet: New Poems (Paperback)

To read Sir Charles is to read about life without the pompous filter you get with most other pap. This installment is no different from anything else from Lord Chinaski.