Love is a Dog From Hell (Paperback)

by Charles Bukowski (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review
$$$$$$
103 Degrees
12:18 A.m.
225 Pounds
The 2nd Novel
462-0614
A 56 Year Old Poem
The 6 Foot Goddess
99 To One
About Cranes
After The Reading
Ah
An Almost Made Up Poem
Alone With Everybody
Another Bed
An Art
Artist
Artists
As Crazy As I Ever Was
Ashes
Beach Trip
The Beautiful Young Girl Walking Past The Graveyard
Bedpans
Beds, Toilets, You And Me
The Bee
Bee's 5th
Beer
Big Max
Blue Cheese And Chili Peppers
A Change Of Habit
Chicago
Chopin Bukowski
Christmas Eve, Alone,
Clean Old Man
Cockroach
Cold Plums
Communion
Coupons
The Crunch
Dark Shades
Dead Now
Defeat
Dog
Don't Touch The Girls
Doom And Siesta Time
The Drill
Eat Your Heart Out
The End Of A Short Affair
The Escape
Fear
For Al --
Fuck
The Girl On The Bus Stop Bench
The Girls At The Green Hotel
Girls Coming Home
Girls In Pantyhose
Gloomy Lady
A Gold Pocket Watch
The Good Life
The Good Loser
A Good One
The Greek
Guru
Hawley's Leaving Town
A Horse With Greenblue Eyes
How Come You're Not Unlisted
How To Be A Great Writer
Huge Ear Rings
I Have Shit Stains In My Underwear Too
I Made A Mistake
I'm Getting Back To Where I Was
I've Seen Too Many Glazed-eyed Bums Sitting Under A Bridge
Imagination And Reality
In A Neighborhood Of Murder
The Insane Always Loved Me
Iron Mike
It's The Way You Play The Game
Junkies
A Killer
Liberty
Light Brown
Like A Flower In The Rain
The Little Girls
Little Tigers Everywhere
Longshot
Love Is A Dog From Hell
A Lovely Couple
Luck
Madness
Me
The Meek Have Interited
Melancholia
Moaning And Groaning
The Most
My Comrades
My Groupie
My Old Man
The Night I Fucked My Alarm Clock
Now, If You Were Teaching Creative Writing, He Asked, What
Numb Your Ass And Your Brain And Your Heart
On The Continent
One For Old Snaggle-tooth
One For The Shoeshine Man
One Of The Hottest
One To The Breastplate
Pacific Telephone
Photographs
The Place Didn't Look Bad
A Plate Glass Window
Prayer In Bad Weather
The Price
Private First Class
Problems About The Other Woman
The Professors
The Promise
Quiet Clean Girls In Gingham Dresses
Rain Or Shine
Red Up And Down
The Retreat
Sandra
Scarlet
Sex
Sexpot
She Came Out Of The Bathroom With Her Flaming Red Hair
Shit Time
Sitting In A Sandwich Joint
Social
Some Picnic
Something
Soul
The Spider
A Stethoscope Case
Stolen
The Strangest Sight You Ever Did See
Sweet Music
T.m.
Texan
There Once Was A Woman Who Put Her Head Into An Oven
This Poet
This Then
Tonight
Traffic Signals
Trapped
Trapped
Trench Warfare
Trying To Get Even
Turnabout
Twins
An Unkind Poem
Up Your Yellow River
Waving And Waving Goodbye
We Will Taste The Islands And The Sea
Weather Report
What They Want
When I Think Of Myself Dead
Who In Hell Is Tom Jones
Winter
The Worst And The Best
Yellow Cab
You
Greed, Part 10: A Note
-- Table of Poems from Poem Finder® --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description
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Product Details

• Paperback: 312 pages
• Publisher: Ecco; Ecco edition (May 31, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0876853629
• ISBN-13: 978-0876853627
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #15,148 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars LOVE...hearts and flowers need not apply., December 27, 1997

By A Customer

Take off the rose-colored glasses...return your seats to their upright position...place your head between your knees and prepare for a crash landing. Don't get me wrong: this book is not a diatribe condemning love. We've all read and loved our Byron, but now it's time to step through the looking glass, children. Love may "walk in beauty like the night" but, "Love, Bukowski Style"...asks you to remember that "the night" isn't the best venue for clarity of vision. Bukowski speaks to that other side of love...vitriolic, soul-destroying, perverted, barbaric and insane. All, who have ever loved, will find the words for their feelings...the feelings for their lack of words...in Bukowski's auto-Eros-dissection. Why would I suggest you read this volume of poetry? Why would anyone want to subject themself to such unpleasantries? What kind of sadist am I, that I would ask you to deliberately subject yourself to the pain of love? To know love, is to know the pain of love. Yet for all the pain inherent in love, we seek love again and again. Nothing exercises our gifts of hope and faith more strenuously. Love may be a "dog from hell" to Bukowski, but he is still unable to disguise his want, his need and his hope for more love. Bukowski - alcoholic, misanthrope, barbarian, gutter rat - who writes of love and can still say..."It softens a man."

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Collection -- from a Great Poet!, January 7, 2004

By A Customer

One of the most renowned poets of the 20th Century came not from the Academia but rather from the dive bars in Los Angeles. Charles Bukowski began to unleash his gutteral cry in the mid-50's. By the time he died of Leukemia in 1994, he was approaching legend status.

Bukowski was the king of skid row poets. He was a drunk living in flophouses, working in factories, fighting, cursing etc. He wrote in a raw, hard hitting style. There is no effort to hide the warts and blemishes here. He wrote in a savagely frank manner on his life and the society that revolved around him.

He eventually became famous enough to befriend Hollywood types like Sean Penn. He wrote a screenplay called "Barfly" which starred Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway. It was partially autobiographical.

Bukowski produced many thick volumes of poetry for the Black Sparrow Press. One of my favorites is "Love Is A Dog From Hell". This includes poems that were written from 1974 through 1977. It fills up over 300 pages. Bukowski was a prolific poet in spite his personal problems with booze and gambling.

His poetry will not be for everyone. He is dirty, crude and has an almost absolute reliance on free verse. He is pretty graphic when it comes to sex and booze. . Poem titles include "sex pot", "moaning and groaning", "The Six Foot Goddess", "problems about the other woman", etc. Several poem titles wouldn't even make it past the epinions filter.

Bukowski goes straight for the jugular. This is not poetry for the meek at heart. He is, however, very funny and very direct. Some of the poems will resonate with near brilliance. Bukowski did have the ability to cut some very clean lines. At times, he can be deceptively clever. There is even rare poignancy. "One for old snaggletooth" is a mean title but pays tribute to his ex-wife: "she has hurt fewer people/than anyone I know,/and if you look at it like that,/well,/she has created a better world/she has won."

A poem like "quiet clean girls in gingham dresses" expresses a longing for a more settled life. He only knows prostitutes, pill poppers and neurotic women but he holds out hope for finding someone better. It concludes: "I know she exists/but where is she on this earth/as the wh***s keep finding me?"

Toilets, hookers, race tracks and roaches exist in this world, newspapers are blankets and mice eat moldy bread on the table, fist fights occur in alleys outside bars. It is not for everyone but adventurous readers who want direct, raw emotional intensity may greatly enjoy this verse. Two other quick Amazon picks are the collected poems of Mark Strand and The Losers' Club by Richard Perez

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of his best, March 12, 2000

By	"still_born" (under a barstool in Atlanta Ga) - See all my reviews

I have the paperback, and nearly half the corners of the pages are folded down because I read them once a month. Like all volumes of poetry, there are good ones and mediocre ones, but overall it's honest, painful, and beautiful. Rather than drone on, I'll give you a sample, from one of my favorites of this volume:

alone with everybody

the flesh covers the bone_ and they put a mind_ in there and_ sometimes a soul,_ and the women break_ vases against the walls_ and the men drink too_ much_ and nobody ever finds the_ one_ but they keep_ looking_ crawling in and out_ of beds._ flesh covers_ the bone and the_ flesh searches_ for more than_ flesh._

there's no chance_ at all:_ we are all trapped_ by a singular_ fate._

nobody ever finds_ the one._

the city dumps fill_ the junkyards fill_ the madhouses fill_ the hospitals fill_ the graveyards fill_ nothing else_ fills.

P.S. "How to be a great writer" is honest, and hilarious, if it weren't for the language, I'd have left that one to convince you to buy this.