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Summary: BUKOWSKI--A BRILLIANT BARFLY
Review: As the author of current mystery novel that features a Southern California private eye who is also a small-press poet, I am a great admirer of Charles Bukowski and his work. LOVE IS A DOG FROM HELL is my favorite Bukowski collection, and it provides the reader with a comprehensive selection of this great contemporary poet's work. Bukowski's work has had a strong influence on my own poetry as well as on the poetry of my fictional private cop. Upon his death, I wrote tribute poem honoring this admirable writer, and it quickly found publication. I would recommend LOVE IS A DOG FROM HELL to any reader who wants to become familiar with Charles Bukowski's life's work.
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Summary: Bukowski is a poet from hell
Review: Bukowski's poetry is like his books : straight to your guts and to your heart. No concessions, of course, and that lirism so special from this strange man, one of the freest men ever. Love, sex, pain, alcohol in overdose in a book that I read breathless. Yes, this is real modern poetry from a modern man. Buk, I'll have many on you; we all should.
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Summary: A Great Collection -- from a Great Poet!
Review: Fantastic collection of poems. Great. Now go away.
Rating:
Summary: Simply a Great Book
Review: i am not a big reader of poetry, but i really like this book. i discovered it at a low period in my life and, believe it or not, it really made me feel better. i have gone back to it at other times and it never fails me. to me, this is bukowski at his best.
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Summary: Ordinary and Obvious
Review: I heard Bukowski on a late night community radio show complaining about "a whore who took my poems". That's how I was introduced to him. Bukowski was overly ordinary, in my opinion, and extremely obivous. From what I heard about him from an ex-hippy co-worker, he deprived himself of typical white suburbia lifestyle -either circumstancially or just because he was most lazy person on this earth to achieve any material goals. In this collection, he goes on and on about the women he had sex with, women he would like to have sex with and his fetishes with utmost honesty. That is admirable. He himself wasn't. He wrote sometimes because his publisher pushed him to do so. In some poems, he admits to it. He was a dirty old man, starred at "upskirts...legs and strawberry lipsticks" of 13 year old school girls waiting at bus-stop. He wrote a poem about it neverthless. He wanted to commit suicide. We read about it too.
And, almost 9 out of 10 times, it never fails -he is sipping some kind of brew, his gastrointestinal problems followed by the heavy drinking, bitching about some random woman, listening to classical music and pondering why he is writing...bunch of drivel. But, it's great! Bukowski enunciates the lonesome,decapitated and boring side of humanity. It's worth a read. I only wish there were more "poetry" such as this.
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Summary: Bitches & Booze
Review: I like to think of Bukowski as the dirty old man of poetry, kind of like the funny, embarrassing uncle I wish I had, who never gets invited to family functions because he'd get drunk and make an ass of himself. That's the kind of character that the Buk was. I'm not big on the booze and I'm not out chasing skirts every chance I get these days, but I really like his honest and knowing portrayal of the seedy "low-life." I'm especially fond of his poems about women, and his relationships with them, which are usually troubled. What I and so many others love about Bukowski's poetry is that it connects with us like no other poetry. Its clarity, its uninhibited rawness, its witty and humorous phrases, etc... is the best. We don't give a damn that academics don't call his work "real poetry." We really couldn't care less. If the Buk ever gets accepted by the Establishment and becomes respectable and respected by those academic twits, I think I'll grab for a barf-bag. Bukowski is the most entertaining and talented non-conventional poet who ever was. His poetry connects with me like the most engaging prose. And speaking of prose, if you want to try his fiction, start with "Ham on Rye."
David Rehak
author of "Poems From My Bleeding Heart"
Rating: 
Summary: My First Bukowski Book
Review: i've never been a really big fan of bukowski. i've read his stuff in anthologies, and like maya angelou, his stuff come off as being too easy for my tastes. i like challenges. plus the whole hard-drinking, hard-living lifestyle doesn't exactly move me. but i got a copy of this book for next to nothing at a garage sale, and decided to try it out... his poems aren't really " poetic "...he doesn't utilize alot of poetic devices...he's just content to tell you his story...
three of the poems in particluar; " my old man," " how to be a great writer," and " a poem to the shoeshine man, " i really liked and if i had hated all the other poems, i would've given the book at least three stars, soley because of those three pieces, but most of the poems moved me. he's writing about life in the low rent world and the affairs of the ( often broken )heart, so the language doesn't need to be flowery or pretentious...he has a way of making you feel the loneliness and desperation of a writer's life...bukowski once said " to expose your a-- on paper is the most dangerous thing in the world." and it's true, a writer puts himself out for everyone to see, too late to take it all back. he not trying to come across as fashionably obscure or ambiguous, he's just telling his poem. they're not p.c. or academic, but they're honest. i look forward to reading one of his novels
Rating: 
Summary: Great title and cover - middling book
Review: One of Bukowski's lesser collections of poetry. It's got some good moments (as most of his poetry books tend to) but much of it feels like filler.
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Summary: LOVE...hearts and flowers need not apply.
Review: Take off the rose-colored glasses...return your seats to their upright position...place your head between your knees and prepare for a crash landing. Don't get me wrong: this book is not a diatribe condemning love. We've all read and loved our Byron, but now it's time to step through the looking glass, children. Love may "walk in beauty like the night" but, "Love, Bukowski Style"...asks you to remember that "the night" isn't the best venue for clarity of vision. Bukowski speaks to that other side of love...vitriolic, soul-destroying, perverted, barbaric and insane. All, who have ever loved, will find the words for their feelings...the feelings for their lack of words...in Bukowski's auto-Eros-dissection. Why would I suggest you read this volume of poetry? Why would anyone want to subject themself to such unpleasantries? What kind of sadist am I, that I would ask you to deliberately subject yourself to the pain of love? To know love, is to know the pain of love. Yet for all the pain inherent in love, we seek love again and again. Nothing exercises our gifts of hope and faith more strenuously. Love may be a "dog from hell" to Bukowski, but he is still unable to disguise his want, his need and his hope for more love. Bukowski - alcoholic, misanthrope, barbarian, gutter rat - who writes of love and can still say..."It softens a man."
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Summary: Not for the happy, or the shiny
Review: These poems are the most edgy, raw and unpolished bits of writing I've ever grimaced at. Bukowski's imagery turns my stomach and makes me want to look away from the page. But at the same time there is this current of satisfaction running throughout the book that I could not stop from falling in love with. This was my first Buk book, and I plan to read much, much more.
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