essentials huh?
well thats a no brainer bud...you've finished with the novels and some might say that one of his greatest works, which appeared in Open City and the LA Free Press is NOTES OF A DIRTY OLD MAN. that is essential for anybody reading Bukowski. It has my alltime favorite Buk story ever. It's The Little Taylor.
A lot of his early work is essential too. Poetry, I'd go with Burning In Water, Drowning In Flame...because they were taken from the books Crucifix In A Death Hand, It Catches My Heart in Its Hands and At Terror Street And Agony Way.
Also go with The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over The Hills because some of those poems appeared in his early chapbooks Poems written before jumping out of an 8 story window, cold dogs in the courtyard, and run with the hunted. Also one of his greatest poems appears in that book. He reads it on the Bukowski At Bellevue reading, KaaKaa And Other Immolations.
and lets not forget The Roominghouse Madrigals
as for short stories
go with
SOUTH OF NO NORTH..because it has the essential bukowski stories All The Assholes in the world and mine and the fuck machine. basically that whole book is good. AND Hot Water Music...not just for You Kissed Lilly but the book as a whole.
all bukowski is good really.
check out all his stuff. it's all really essential