Maxim is hardly the place anyone goes for any literary news or critique or literary anything for that matter. It's Playboy-lite for young men. The bottom line is it probably doesn't matter what you say about a writer or a singer or an ac-tor, it's about what they do, and the more people you can get to look at what they do, the better.
As for STD's, or other weird inaccuracies, those things only matter to us. ;) If the dink at Maxim who wrote this feels the need to sensationalize in order to get Bukowski across to someone, it's all good. Bukowski and Martin and Weissner did the same thing themselves, on a smaller and quieter scale perhaps, but hype is hype is hype.
Oh yeah, and poetry - based on the people I know personally who are recently new to Bukowski, they all started with the novels and short stories, and only warily and begrudgingly picked up the poetry books. I think most people look at poetry like string theory or international politics: probably very important, but not interesting to them. Of course if there is one poet who can convince someone with zero interest that poetry is actually not some sort of bitter medicine, it is Bukowski.
So I guess I say good for Maxim, and good for Ecco and their new covers. In the end the words either grab you or they don't.
