Mockingbird Wish Me Luck

Rating:
Summary: Bukowski...poet
Review: Charles Bukowski had a rare gift. He could make desperation beautiful. He could make hate and pain beautiful. Bukowski had a magic way of twisting emotions into poems of unimaginable shapes. Each poetic flash serving as a portal into one man's interpretation of life. And that, I think, impresses me most about Bukowski. There is no pretension. His work... simply is. Mocking Bird came out in 1979 and some readers commented that B. was going soft. What they fail to realize is that people evolve. Bukowski was still Bukowski, but perhaps his poet eyes began to see some different shades of gray. And we certainly can't fault him for that. .

Rating:
Summary: Bukowski...poet
Review: Charles Bukowski had a rare gift. He could make desperation beautiful. He could make hate and pain beautiful. Bukowski had a magic way of twisting emotions into poems of unimaginable shapes. Each poetic flash serving as a portal into one man's interpretation of life. And that, I think, impresses me most about Bukowski. There is no pretension. His work... simply is. Mocking Bird came out in 1979 and some readers commented that B. was going soft. What they fail to realize is that people evolve. Bukowski was still Bukowski, but perhaps his poet eyes began to see some different shades of gray. And we certainly can't fault him for that. .

Rating:
Summary: very strong, angry poetry
Review: Charles Bukowski is by sure one of my favorite poets. His work is vivid and very powerful. This book has my favorite poems by him, "Rain" and also "The Mockingbird"

Rating:
Summary: Bukowski's Own Words
Review: I'm not sure what the reviewer from "southern california" was smoking when he wrote his review, but he couldn't be more wrong. It's a well-known fact that Martin never (I stress NEVER) got away with changing Buk's writing. The Buk himself said enough in regards to the problems with WOMEN, where Martin did in fact try to spice things up, but Buk caught EVERY SINGLE CHANGE, and demanded they be changed back, thus producing the only Buk/BSP book to be reprinted due to errors. Why then, would anyone think Martin got away with this with Buk's poetry? As far as literary attacks go, Buk fueled these on his own, and was notorious for burning numerous bridges (i.e the Webbs, the aforementioned Wantling, Steve Richmond, Marvin Malone, etc.). A good poem is a good poem regardless of who gets attacked. Most of these people retorted on their own, and understood the nature of the attack. I'm quite suspicious of this reviewer and am positive it is one of those poets who was villified in this collection, namely in the poem: "300 poems." "he was rich and I was poor / and the sea rolled in / and I turned the / white / pages." You know who you are. Regardless of any of that, this is one of Bukowski's finest literary achievements, hail the Buk!

Rating:
Summary: Bukowski's Own Words
Review: I'm not sure what the reviewer from "southern california" was smoking when he wrote his review, but he couldn't be more wrong. It's a well-known fact that Martin never (I stress NEVER) got away with changing Buk's writing. The Buk himself said enough in regards to the problems with WOMEN, where Martin did in fact try to spice things up, but Buk caught EVERY SINGLE CHANGE, and demanded they be changed back, thus producing the only Buk/BSP book to be reprinted due to errors. Why then, would anyone think Martin got away with this with Buk's poetry? As far as literary attacks go, Buk fueled these on his own, and was notorious for burning numerous bridges (i.e the Webbs, the aforementioned Wantling, Steve Richmond, Marvin Malone, etc.). A good poem is a good poem regardless of who gets attacked. Most of these people retorted on their own, and understood the nature of the attack. I'm quite suspicious of this reviewer and am positive it is one of those poets who was villified in this collection, namely in the poem: "300 poems." "he was rich and I was poor / and the sea rolled in / and I turned the / white / pages." You know who you are. Regardless of any of that, this is one of Bukowski's finest literary achievements, hail the Buk!