...

This was the first time I've read anything by Charles Bukowski and maybe it wasn't the best poetry collection of his to start out with. As I read, I marked the poems that stood out to me. There were only ten, but those ten were marvelous. The others weren't horrible but it did get a little wearing by the end and that's why I went with a lower rating. So many of the poems blended together after a while into a dreary, miserable mix of Bukowski writing about writing a poem, alcohol, vomit, long hair, and young women he has/had sex with or just lusts over. It all becomes pretty dull and repetitive, so much so that the ones that stood out to me, or don't fit that generalization, get lost in the tiring stampede of the others.

Still, I'd consider reading more of his poetry or books, but this time selecting more carefully. I don't know, though; this may have been a bad introduction to his work because of the majority of the subject matter, or maybe I'm just not a huge fan of his style. What I do know is that after reading his poems, I feel like I've been in one of his slightly ugly relationships, and I'd like to wash him out of my system for a while.