The Continual Condition (2 Viewers)

I was also refering to books, not mags. I found six poems from bone palace ballet alone,
and even more from later collections. And, no, this is not the first time, but it has
never been this obvious before. I would love to see more poetry-collections but this one
seems like a rip-off, or at least not very well-researched.
 
the title is awful.

I agree....
was in the tub reading the book last night, and came across this line,
on page 29, from 'The Last Race',
thinking,
wow, now, that would be a great title for this book

and at the same time thinking,
I should start a new thread->
"What would you re-title each book?"

(Like we need another thread,
hell, we may already have that thread :>)

Anyway, instead of The Continual Condition,
how about A Fart of Thunder
?
Ha.

I'm enjoying the book, forcing myself to read it slow slow slow
(and in order, which I don't think I've ever done;
but of course I've already cheated and read the last couple,
and wow, yes, 'Bayonets' is worth the ticket price alone).

And btw, I like the original cover that mjp gave us somewhere, if anyone has an ARC that they'd be willing to part with please pm me
 
I was also refering to books, not mags. I found six poems from bone palace ballet alone,
and even more from later collections. And, no, this is not the first time, but it has
never been this obvious before. I would love to see more poetry-collections but this one
seems like a rip-off, or at least not very well-researched.

Jebus, six poems from Bone Palace Ballet alone? That's a lot for such a thin book.

they are supposed to be uncollected poems but there are alot of previously collected poems in this one. almost 1/3 of them. which is pretty bad when you see how thin it is.

Do you have a list of the poems who have already been published in the various collections? Almost 1/3 is way too many.
 
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I'm a helpless fan of the little man and flask, dog and bird doodles, so other than the obnoxious green and orange lettering, I think the cover is great. But cheap, yes. Did you really expect anything more?
 
I was also refering to books, not mags. I found six poems from bone palace ballet alone,
and even more from later collections. And, no, this is not the first time, but it has
never been this obvious before. I would love to see more poetry-collections but this one
seems like a rip-off, or at least not very well-researched.

Unless they were previously collected under different titles -which is not unusual- I don't recall seeing 6 poems from BPB and more from later collections, but you might be right. Care to list those dupes here?
 
Ok, upon close inspection, I found two poems from Bone Palace Ballet ("full circle" and "the strange morning"; "rejected" is similar to "my worst rejection slip", but I'd say they are different poems), one from Sifting... ("listening to the radio at 1:35 a.m."), one from The Flash of Lightning... ("the last winter") and one from War All the Time ("a hot sweaty day in August"). Those probabaly slipped by Martin.

There are at least six poems reprinted from WR issues.

I couldn't find any of the following poems in any magazine or book. Some of them are available on CDs from poetry readings or in the Manuscript section of this site, but to my knowledge they're have not been published in a book/mag (if you have seen in a book, please say so here):

thanks for the luck [??]
my art form [??]
rejected [??]
the continual condition [??]
to kiss her long dark hair [??]
the recess bells of school (??)
feeling good in the new neighborhood [??]
this kind of fire [??]
unemployed [??]
the last race [??]
the theory [??]
dog times [??]
about a worried reader of my works: [??]
a good place [??]
you've seen it on the barstool next to you- [??]
never [different from all the other poems titled "never"] [??]
news item [??]
this flag not fondly waiving [??] [Ecco discard]
a fine madness [??] [Ecco discard]
consummation [??] [Ecco discard]
heavy dogs in cement shoes [??] [Ecco discard]
tragedy? [??]
perfect silence [??]
dear editor: [different from the NYQ one]
lack of a common interest [??] [Ecco discard]
I'm upstairs now [??] [Ecco discard]
what have I seen? [??]
a correspondent wrote bitterly: [??]
moving toward age 73: [??]
mountain of horror [??]
 
Okay, so that's 5 poems from earlier collections. That's not too bad, and much fewer than I feared.
Thanks, cirerita!
 
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'mountain of horror' is more or less the same poem as 'mountain' from bone palace ballet. the same goes for 'tragedy?' which was then called 'reunion'.
'moving toward age 73' is 'poem for the young and tough' from flash of lightning.
even the title of the book is 'the condition' from war all the time.
also some poems from play the piano drunk, come on in! what matter most and sloching...
 
Good research, capt.co!

even the title of the book is 'the condition' from war all the time.

That's right. Not much difference except for a short stanza more in "War..". I like the "War.." version better.

also some poems from play the piano drunk, come on in! what matter most and sloching...

Do you remember which ones?
 
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Thanks capt.co.
"thanks for the luck" was published in What Matters... as "thanks for that".
"my art form" was "my style" in Bone Palace.
"to kiss her long dark hair" was "to weep" in Play the Piano...
"the last race" was Part III of "Horsemeat" in War all the Time
I just updated the list with your info (right now there are 13 poems from previous collections). If you know any other dupes from Play the Piano, What Matters, etc, please post them here.

rejected [??]
the recess bells of school (??)
feeling good in the new neighborhood [??]
this kind of fire [??]
unemployed [??]
the theory [??]
dog times [??]
about a worried reader of my works: [??]
a good place [??]
you've seen it on the barstool next to you- [??]
never [different from all the other poems titled "never"] [??]
news item [??]
this flag not fondly waiving [??] [previous Ecco discard]
a fine madness [??] [previous Ecco discard]
consummation [??] [previous Ecco discard]
heavy dogs in cement shoes [??] [previous Ecco discard]
perfect silence [??]
dear editor: [different from the NYQ one]
lack of a common interest [??] [previous Ecco discard]
I'm upstairs now [??] [previous Ecco discard]
what have I seen? [??]
a correspondent wrote bitterly: [??]
 
Thanks, cirerita! - That's 13 poems out of 63, or a bit over 20%, which have been collected before. Maybe more will show up. That's far too many, I think.
 
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Thanks, cirerita! - That's 13 poems out of 63, or a bit over 20%, which have been collected before. Maybe more will show up. That's far too many, I think.

I'd say there are at least 2-3 more dupes from Come On In or Slouching, but I don't have any easy, fast way to double check this.
 
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At least 2-3 more dupes? That would mean about 25% of the poems are reprints, or nearly reprints, from earlier collections. Too bad it's too time consuming to double check each poem but at least most of the dupes have been identified by now. The rest might turn up along the way when people read or re-read the previous collections.

Good research, cirerita & capt. co!
 
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I just bought the book a couple days ago. I'm waiting for a quiet Saturday night at the coffee shop to read it. Maybe this Halloween.
 
I received the book about a week ago but will wait for just the right moment to start reading it.

That moment will include;

a) solitude
b) no deadlines of any kind
c) alcohol

I also just picked up a copy of the ARC from ebay.
Happy about that.
 
did you use the BIN at $35? if so, you bastard! i was gonna buy it but decided to make the seller an offer first, which was declined, and then i realized that it was sold. probably why i was declined!
 
Really? Can you tell us which ones?

Btw, I miscounted. It's 14 poems not 13 we've dicovered so far, plus the new 5 poems you just found.
14 poems out of 63 is 22.22% reprints. 19 out of 63 is 30.15% reprints. Wow, that's almost 1/3!
 
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I'm a helpless fan of the little man and flask, dog and bird doodles, so other than the obnoxious green and orange lettering, I think the cover is great.
Linda Bukowski agrees.

When the Vroman's thing was about to start she picked up her copies of Hitler Painted Roses and The Continual Condition from behind the makeshift bar, showed Condition to Carol and said, "Isn't it cute?"
 
That would entail way too much bibliographic research on my part. I'm sure capt.co could do this in the blink of an eye ;)

I see! I thought you had the titles. I guess I could do a search although only identical titles would show up. We'll leave it to capt. co then.

Are you listening, capt. co? :D
 
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I like the cover, though the ARC cover was cool too....But I swear, and I just read it 1minute it ago, "parts dept." still makes me crack up as much as any Bukowski poem I've ever read.
 
Any ideas as to why John Martin chose at least 14 poems for the book which already had appeared in other poetry collections (some slightly changed)?
Was John Martin that forgetful or what?
 
I get the feeling the duplication was not intentional. But whether it was or not, according to people who have asked him about it, he just didn't care that there were duplicates. He was meticulous about a lot of other things, but not that.
 
So he was just sloppy when he picked the poems for the book?

The reason I ask is because somebody asked me that very question and I simply don't know what to answer him.
 
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Thanks! - I guess Martin did'nt keep an exact record of poems which had been collected previously, not to mention different titles of the same poem and poems which content had been slightly altered since their first appearance.
 
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It was certainly more than just a few previously published poems which slipped by him, and some of them were published fairly recent in posthumous collections which he also edited.
 

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