Like a great heavyweight in the ring with that final indomitable
adversary, Bukowski went down swinging. The 175 posthumously
published new poems of Bone Palace Ballet once again prove his
mettle, showing the banged-up old champ still on his feet and gamely
slugging it out with the inevitable: "after this long fight / I have
no intention of / quitting short. / or late. / or satisfied". The
life-narrative skills that made Bukowski the finest verse storyteller
of his time are still alive and kicking in these verse tales, vivid
fragments shored against time's ruin. The dance of death in
Bukowski's bone palace takes shape as autobiography: yarns about his
Depression childhood and early literary passions (from lusting after
his high school English teacher to covertly devouring forbidden'
books), his apprentice days as a hard-drinking, starving poetic
aspirant ("working on the last bottle of /wine, /the sheets of your /
writing strewn across the / floor. / you have walked on and across /
them, / your masterpieces, /and/either/they'll be read in /hell, /or
perhaps / gnawed at by the/curious/mice"), and finally the
bittersweet later years, when, having been rendered by history "just
/ another old fart in a world of old farts", he nonetheless remains
able to look back over his shoulder at Fate with a measure of
undefeatable defiance.
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