The Last Night of the Earth Poems [Paperback]

Charles Bukowski (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 31, 2002

Poems deal with writing, death and immortality, literature, city life, illness, war, and the past.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

"A. Huxley died at 69/ much too early for such a/ fierce talent." Now in his seventh decade, Bukowski is preoccupied with death, but in such a way that he spices his usual flat monotone with bits of welcome humor. While continuing his focus on life in bars and at the racetrack, these poems enlarge the meditative tone begun in You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense ( LJ 1/87). Bukowski remembers the first time he read great authors or heard classical composers; he reflects on old friends, co-workers, and lovers, but with a new gentleness, as in "Darkling," a wonderfully lyric love poem to his wife. Poems such as this make it easier to spot the poetic craft at work behind Bukowski's understated common speech. Finally, the poet's emphasis on reflection and mellowed tone will, one hopes, enlarge the poet's huge but specialized readership.
- Rochelle Ratner, formerly Poetry Editor, "Soho Weekly News," New York
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

8 Count
Air And Light And Time And Space
The Aliens
Are You Drinking
The Area Of Pause
Balloons
Batting Order
Be Kind
Before Aids
The Beggars
Begging
Betrayed
Between Races
The Big Ride
Blasted Apart With The First Breath
The Bluebird
Bonaparte's Retreat
Bright Red Car
The Bully
Car Wash
Celine With Cane And Basket
Charles The Lion-hearted
Classical Music And Me
Companion
Confession
Cool Black Air
Corsage
The Creative Act
Creative Writing Class
Crime And Punishment
Cut While Shaving
D
The Damnation Of Buk
Darkling
Darkness And Ice
Days Like Razors, Nights Full Of Rats
Death Is Smoking My Cigars
Dinner, 1933
Dinosauria, We
Downers
Downtown Billy
Duck And Forget It
The Eagle Of The Heart
The Editor
Edward Sbragia
Elvis Lives
Everything You Touch
Eyeless Through Space
Fan Letter
The Feel Of It
Finished
The Flashing Of The Odds
Flat Tire
Flophouse
Freaky Time
The Genius
Get Close Enough And You Can't See
Going Out
A Good Job
The Greatest Actor Of Our Day
Hand-outs
Hangovers
Happy Birthday
Heat Wave
Hell Is A Closed Door
Hello, Hamsun
Hemingway Never Did This
Hock Shops
Hold On, It's A Belly Laugh
Hunk Of Rock
The Idiot
Ill
In And Out Of The Dark
In Error
In The Bottom
In The Shadow Of The Rose
Inactive Volcano
The Interviewers
An Invitation
It's A Shame
The Jackals
Jam
The Lady And The Mountain Lion
Last Seat At The End
A Laugh A Minute
Let Me Tell You
The Lost And The Desperate
Luck Was Not A Lady
The Man With The Beautiful Eyes
Moving Toward The 21st Century
Mugged
My Buddy In Valet Parking At The Race Track
My Buddy, The Buddha
My First Computer Poem
My German Buddy
My Uncle Jack
Nirvana
No More, No Less
No Sale
Now (1)
Off And On
Oh, I Was A Ladies' Man
The Old Horseplayer
Only One Cervantes
The Open Canvas
The Pack
Peace
A Poet In New York
Poetry
Poetry Contest
Post Time
Pulled Down Shade
Question And Answer
Recognized
The Replacements
Rossini, Mozart And Shostakovich
The Science Of Physiognomy
See Here, You
Shock Treatment
Shooting The Moon In The Eye
Show Biz
Sitting With The Ibm
Small Cafe
Snapshots At The Track
The Soldier, The Wife And The Bum
Spark
Splashing
A Strange Day
A Suborder Of Naked Buds
Such Luck
Surprise Time Again
Tag Up And Hold
The Telephone
That I Have Known The Dead
Them And Us
They Are Everywhere
They Don't Eat Like Us
This
This Rejoinder
Those Mornings
Torched-out
Transport
Trollius And Trellises
Two Toughs
Upon This Time
Victory
Waiting
Wandering In The Cage
War
Warm Light
Washrag
We Ain't Got No Money, Honey, But We Got Rain
What A Writer
Within The Dense Overcast
The Word
The Writer
X-idol
You Know And I Know And Thee Know
Young In New Orleans
Zero
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder® --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 408 pages
• Publisher: Ecco (May 31, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0876858639
• ISBN-13: 978-0876858639
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #51,836 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

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Last Will & Testament, February 11, 2002

By 

Mark Begley "Letterpressed.com" (Fresno, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Last Night of the Earth Poems (Paperback)

The title says it all really; these were Buk's last earth poems (I know tons of his books have been released posthumously), and some of his best writing ever. A true masterpiece, at times surprisingly tender, with Buk at his topmost. One of my favorites (and I've read them all) and a great place for those new to Buk to start.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This Book Will Change Your Life, August 6, 2000

By 

Joe Deveny (Anarica) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Last Night of the Earth Poems (Paperback)

This book is Bukowski at his brilliant best, talking straight from experience about the life of a bum alcoholic poet.

When I first read this book, I was eleven years old and had never heard of Bukowski or read anything of this sort, or any poetry. It was like the book cast a spell on me. I could not stop reading. I remember staying up all hours of the night, reading this book with a flashlight, frantically turning the pages, hoping it would go on forever. It spoke to me on an intimate lever that no school-assigned swill ever had. I grabbed me by my soul and dragged me down into a beautiful abbyss which I have not left to this day.

After reading this book, you will never be the same again.

39 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Schopenhauer gone to seed...., May 26, 2002

By 

OAKSHAMAN "oakshaman" (Algoma, WI United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Last Night of the Earth Poems (Paperback)

Back in my 20's and 30's during my "dark night of the soul" Bukowski was about the only author and poet that I could still read. I think that this was because he was the only writer that I could identify with. We had too much in common: we had read the same books, worked the same crummy jobs, patronized the same sort of bars, and above all, suffered the same kind of fools. So I knew that he was for real.

After I had reached bottom, been dismembered by demons, and yet strangely could not die, I still read Bukowski. I knew that in order to be reborn, you first have to suffer hell and die. Bukowski had been there, had done that. I knew the validity of his path. I had done it.

Bukowski was an anachronism- a literate, and published, working man. That is something that has been almost obliterated in American "culture." Maybe it had something to do with his German roots. I always think of him as a Schopenhauer gone to seed.

I think I know why Bukowski got so little respect from literary types and contemporary poets. You see Hank was a MAN and an ADULT, and your literary types have a basic problem with both manhood and adulthood....