Bone Palace Ballet: New Poems

By Charles Bukowski

Book Overview

This is a collection of 175 previously unpublished works by Bukowski. It contains yarns about his childhood in the Depression and his early literary passions, his apprentice days as a hard-drinking, starving poetic aspirant, and his later years when he looks back at fate with defiance.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 157423028X
• ISBN13: 9781574230284
• Release Date: August 2002
• Publisher: Ecco Press
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 1.22 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.9" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Bukowski Scores Again!

Bone Palace Ballet is another amazing book of prose from the drunkest of the drunken poets, the most beaten of the beats, Charles Bukowski. To say he was an influential writer, is like saying Dr. M.L. King was a mediocre speaker. Bukowski inspired more people to pick up a pen or sit down at a typewriter than possibly any other writer or poet in the short history of our country. Bone Palace Ballet is actually one of his milder books compared to a lot of his work. So people who have been scared off by his hard living and harder writing, can appreciate this collection. Although not his best work by far, it's worth a read (as is anything he ever did). It's a quick read despite it's hefty length, so you'd be better off borrowing this one from a friend. That's the only problem with poetry books, is the high cost combined with the short time it takes to read them. But I would still rather see you buy this than borrow the crap that's on the New York Times best seller list. Now go out and find his other work.

not with a wimper, but a bang

Bukowski in his last years. Rare to see a writer grapple with aging and death in such a matter of fact way. There are some true gems in this one. .... Bone Palace is a little repetitive, but you can't be shocked to find Bukowski holding forth on booze, women, horses, hypocrites, and writing. What else did he ever write about? And really, what more can you ask for?

An Unconventional Thriller

It's called "bone pallace ballet" so it's not a book of poems to read to your girlfriend under a willow tree at four in the afternoon, unless of course, she's got a wicked sense of humor. This book's hilarious, but chillingly realistic accounts of city life leave the reader dazed. It's like a high without the chemicals. He doesn't follow any modern patterns of poetry, but he reserves images for when they're necessary. We can only sense what he wants us to sense, when he wants us to feel it, see it, hear it, taste it. Bukowski takes you on a wild ride, leads you around, and in the end, you thank him for it. And if you're a writer out there, read "The Word"! I haven't read it in a while, but I still remember certain lines, an image I could never have thought of, but he throws it in there, and it looks effortless like an acrobat, "It can't hold your cigarette for you" and then the rush of "getting it down, getting it down, getting it down." Read it, twice, you'll love it.

Read it if you love Bukowski

Lets face it, if you love Bukowski, you love Bukowski. Period. If you don't, well, then stick to Mickey Spilane or Mickey Mouse -- or how about Danielle Steele?This is the man older and wiser and, yes, often less desperate than when he was a rail thin bum living the good hard life of the bottle. Still the poems are honest and fine with Buk's signiture tight, clean lines.I'll be honest. This one sat on my shelf for a couple of years before I picked it up and read it. I was afraid it might be crap. Listen up folks: It's not. Instead it's one more volley from heaven, one more burst of life from the best poet since Whitman.If you love Bukowski then any Buk is good Buk. If you don't love Bukowski then sit and spin,brother, sit and spin. READ BUKOWSKI AND LIVE!

A GOOD DRINKING BOOK(vodka and beer)

Bukowski rises from the dead with his biting wit and clever shots at this doomed world.Never was self-destruction so beautiful.