I saw a tramp last night
the way the old dog walked
with dotted, tired fur
down nobody’s alley
being nobody’s dog . . .
past the empty vodka bottles
past the peanut butter jars,
with wires full of electricity
and the birds asleep somewhere,
down the alley he went—
nobody’s dog
moving through it all,
brave as any army.
In the literary pantheon, Charles Bukowski remains a counterculture icon, a writer and poet of sublime talent who, as Leonard Cohen aptly remarked, “brought everybody down to earth, even the angels.” A hard-drinking wild man of literature, a stubborn outsider to the poetry world, he has struck a chord with generations of readers, writing raw, tough poetry about booze, work, and women that speaks to his fans as being “real” and, like the work of the Beats, even dangerous. The Continual Condition demonstrates once again this uncompromising commentator’s fierce ability to capture the heartbreaking pain and dark beauty of our world.
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, to an American soldier father and a German mother in 1920, and brought to the United States at the age of three. He was raised in Los Angeles and lived there 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).
Review :
"Charles Bukowski was a Titan--an artist who almost single handedly made the life of the poet--once again--a viable and even noble venture. Millions of people who might otherwise never have read a word of poetry were awakened to the possibilities and sheer power of the written word by his works. That his books remain among the most frequently shoplifted in the history of bookselling speaks well of his continuing appeal--a fact I'm sure would have pleased him. " - Anthony Bourdain
"Charles Bukowski is the Walt Whitman of Los Angeles." - Joyce Carol Oates
"Bukowski's strength is in the sheer bulk of his contents, the virulent anecdotal sprawl, the melodic spleen without the fetor of the parlor or the classroom, as if he were writing while straddling a cement wall or sitting on a bar stool, the seat of which is made of thorns." - New York Times Book Review
"Before I read Bukowski (I was eighteen years old at the time) I thought writing was bullshit. Bukowski changed my life. He gave me permission to be honest and he taught me that it's OK to write about yourself as long as you always remember that the reader doesn't actually care about you. The reader is doing you a favor and you have to give something back. Those years I read everything Bukowski ever wrote--poems, stories, novels, essays. He was the first artist to have any effect on me. He made me want to be a writer and for that I'll never forgive him." - Stephen Elliott
"A prolific poet . . . a popular, accessible, and yes, great artist." - Washington Post Book World
