Customer Reviews

Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way: New Poems

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

To make it short: this is not Bukowski's best work. And it doesn't have to be. He published over 40 books when he was still alive and all that is released now after his death are the Left-overs. Some are stronger, some are weaker, but one thing is clear: with collections like this one you might scare off future readers because what can be found in this collection is less than average in quality for Bukowski. If you want to go ahead and discover Bukowski (and I strongly recommend that), buy one of his earlier books of poetry like: Burning in water, drowning in flame OR Dangling in the Tournefortia. This is where you find some of the best poems ever written in English. This new book is o.k., but at least wait until it comes out in Paperback...

But you should. This posthumous poetry book starts by a killer poem "so you want to be a writer": "If it doesnt come bursting out of you/ in spite of everything/ don't do it./ unless it comes unasked out of your/ heart and your mind and your mouth/ don't do it./ if you have to sit for hours..." and so on, a poem for all those writes who want to "do" it, then just don't.

This is Bukowski's 6th poetry book published since his death, and since ECCO announces that it will be publishing more voulmes of uncollected poems, it seems probable that Bukowski's posthumous books of poetry will be greater than those he published in his life. The poems in this book, as well as in the last 6 books, are not really fillers, or second rate poems, they were not published because Bukowski and his publisher, were busy publishing other , more commercial or urgent books. As with all his books since "War all the time" published in 1984 (or even before that one) this book is a novel written in verse. The basic Buk's book is built around his alter ego, Chinasky, adn each book is the (autho) biography of this Chinasky. He writes to poets, writes about his father, mother, women, literary desert, and literary success late in life, working the factories and other underpaid jobs, horses, betting, death, the pleasure of being rich, and the problems of being famous. Each book includes one or more poems on these subjects and in a way they all tell the same story of Chinasky from different angles.

I have just finished the first reading of this book, and I have really enjoyed it, not everything is perfect but Buk is still the best american poet ever, even when he is not at his best. If you don't have to read it, don't, but I think you should...

Not for the timid.

Not for those who read the reviews of others.

Get it.

Read it.

And grab hold of the life you've got.

Charles Bukowski, Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way (Ecco, 2003)

Yet another collection of posthumously-published work from the ten thousand pages Buk left after his death, Sifting... is an inconsistent piece of work at best, like most of Buk's later collections of poetry. Every once in a while you get a great snatch of writing like the one that became the title of the collection, but it's mostly just the same old Buk, chopping up witty observations into line that look like poetry. That said, Buk was better than most at the chopping itself; he had an innate sense of what was really important in a piece, however vague it might be, and accenting it with the size and shape of the poem itself, making his prose-chopped-up-into-lines more readable than the vast majority of same.

The best thing about Sifting... is that it contains a lot more of the gems among the dross than many of Buk's later collections. You'll find yourself nodding and smiling every two or three pages here; not as much as in his best stuff (Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame remains the height of Bukowski's poetic achievement), but a lot more than in some of the recent books.

Worth it for Bukowski fans. Others might want to start wth Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame, War All the Time, or one of the other "best-of" collections from the early and middle periods. *** ½

If you're a Bukowski fan, you can't get enough. Just read it, it can't hurt except your pocket book, and if you're that skeptical go to the library.
Is that one says about a great artist/author's work after they're dead? It's redundant and mediocre?
It's just like when you like certain music and end-up collecting compilations. This book contains a lot of the old, but some new material and Bukowski carries on from the dead.
By all means you should read his earlier works, but all is good too.

When a new Bukowski book comes out, I buy it right away. Sometimes it's good (like THE NIGHT TORN MAD) and sometimes it's not so good. This one is one of the not-so-good books.

I love getting back into the world of Bukowski --- the race track, the alcohol, the wild youth, watching the quiet desperation of Americans --- but this time the magic is gone. For every keeper (like "Where Was I?") there's 10 mediocre poems.

But hey, I'll be back for the next one...

Buy it. Read it. Feel it. Love it. And then read it again.

Bukowski may be one of my favorite authors, not only for the style and way he writes,
but also the raw truth in what he writes.

No flitty,embellished, wordy trying-to-make-poerty crap.

It's real. And it has actual meaning.

You don't have to be a scholar to see how great of a writer he is.
And you don't have to be a scholar to understand it.

Because he's just like the rest of us, he's human.

Much better stuff than previous posthumous publications. Buk may eventually surpass Hemingway for more books published dead than alive.