Essential Bukowski
Poetry
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Essential Bukowski
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Narrated by:
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Johnny Heller
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By:
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Charles Bukowski
About this listen
Edited by Abel Debritto, the definitive collection of poems from an influential writer whose transgressive legacy and raw, funny, and acutely observant writing has left an enduring mark on modern culture.
Few writers have so brilliantly and poignantly conjured the desperation and absurdity of ordinary life as Charles Bukowski. Resonant with his powerful, perceptive voice, his visceral, hilarious, and transcendent poetry speaks to us as forcefully today as when it was written. Encompassing a wide range of subjects—from love to death and sex to writing—Bukowski’s unvarnished and self-deprecating verse illuminates the deepest and most enduring concerns of the human condition while remaining sharply aware of the day to day.
With his acute eye for the ridiculous and the troubled, Bukowski speaks to the deepest longings and strangest predilections of the human experience. Gloomy yet hopeful, this is tough, unrelenting poetry touched by grace.
This is Essential Bukowski.
©2016 Charles Bukowski (P)2024 HarperCollins PublishersRelated to this topic
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Tales of Ordinary Madness
- By: Charles Bukowski, Gail Chiarrello - editor
- Narrated by: Will Patton
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 574
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 498
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 497
This collection of Buk's grimmest diaries gives an insight into the noir and brutal Los Angeles that Bukowski observed and lived so well. He was a legend in his time: a madman, a recluse, a lover...tender, vicious...never the same. These are exceptional stories that came pounding out of his violent and depraved life - horrible and holy. You cannot listen to them and come away the same again.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Patton nails this.
- By Martin W on 01-09-18
By: Charles Bukowski, and others
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On Drinking
- By: Charles Bukowski
- Narrated by: Roger Wayne
- Length: 4 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 140
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 119
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 118
Charles Bukowski turns to the bottle in this revelatory collection of poetry and prose that includes some of the writer’s best and most lasting work. A self-proclaimed “dirty old man”, Bukowski used alcohol as muse and as fuel, a conflicted relationship responsible for some of his darkest moments, as well as some of his most joyful and inspired. In On Drinking, Bukowski expert Abel Debritto has collected the writer’s most profound, funny, and memorable work on his ups and downs with the hard stuff.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Don't read this sober
- By Lowball on 03-02-19
By: Charles Bukowski
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Pretty Boys Are Poisonous
- Poems
- By: Megan Fox
- Narrated by: Megan Fox
- Length: 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 336
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 322
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Story5 out of 5 stars 322
“These poems were written in an attempt to excise the illness that had taken root in me because of my silence. I’ve spent my entire life keeping the secrets of men, my body aches from carrying the weight of their sins. My freedom lives in these pages, and I hope that my words can inspire others to take back their happiness and their identity by using their voice to illuminate what’s been buried, but not forgotten, in the darkness,” says Fox.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Moving
- By Kacey Lewis on 11-17-23
By: Megan Fox