Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way by Charles Bukowski (Ecco, 400pgs., $27.50)

This latest posthumous volume by the late great Bukowski is almost not worth reviewing. Let's face it: Those who think Buk, clown god of American Poetry, walked on water are going to buy the book and love it no matter what. And those who never appreciated the man's greatness or his contribution to American Poetry will ignore this volume regardless. As one who once upon a time walked among those in the former category, I'll risk damnation from Buk-worshipers everywhere and state outright that this volume blows donkey dick. While I don't begrudge the man's family the right to make money from his estate, there is something false and unethical about posthumously publishing largely unpublishable work by a man whose writing has seen better days. But the title of this volume is certainly appropriate as I found myself sifting through the mad yet slickly put together book looking for some actual poetry. Sad to say, I didn't find one poem in this book that did it for me. Much of the poetry the man published during his lifetime was full of original social commentary, good humor and a special conversational tone that made his readers feel as if he were writing poems just for them. I found none of these qualities in this book. As with many of his earlier volumes, the poetry can be easily classified under three topics: poems about the writing life, poems about Bukowski himself (or his alter-ego, Chinaski, which amounts to the same thing), and poems of social and/or political commentary. His commentary is both uninspired and completely lacking in original insight. Consider one of the better offerings in this book: "Show Business" in which a fictional Hollywood agent tries to convince an equally fictional big name actor the PR value of appearing at an AIDS benefit. "The public LOVES these AIDS BENEFITS, Marty!" Makes for a neat little monologue — the voice is authentic enough, but all we really get out of this is that Hollywood people are phony. Well, no shit, Sherlock! It's a cliché at best and a greater crime still when one considers that Bukowski's own autobiographical novel, Hollywood is easily one of the best books written about the movie business – right up there with Schulberg's What Makes Sammy Run? And Michael Tolkien's The Player. Other poems are merely bland re-tellings of anecdotes we've heard before about his childhood and many trips to the horse track, etc. Gone is Bukowski's smart-ass, "show-me-something" cynicism. In its place, we find pure mechanized apathy as if he were writing these bits punching a time clock.. Bukowski tells a young writer in an earlier poem that one shouldn't write poetry "unless it comes unasked out of your / heart and your mind and your mouth / and your gut." Pity John Martin and the representatives of Bukowski's estate couldn't have seen the wisdom in this and burned this most dishonest, mediocre crap rather than offering it to the public.

— Reviewed by JCE