Which is your favorite poetry book? (1 Viewer)

I had to think about this question for a while. Burning in Water... is no doubt my favorite, but I couldn't really come up with a least favorite, although Play the Piano was the only title that really made any sense. Not that I don't like it, but I don't pick it up much. Yes, Fire Station is good, but I have two copies of that to read when I want to feel vintage (hell, I feel vintage every day). Actually, I only ever read the second printing.
 
Burning in water is my favorite. It’s got everything.

War and Stew are my least. War has some real great poems and the stories are pretty good as well but overall it’s just not something I return to. Buks talk about other writers and critics gets a little old.

Stew I thought was pretty boring. I love the story about the guy getting money off someone and eating steak in the fancy restaurant. Overall I think he said the same things better in other books. I don’t think it’s a bad book just but it doesn’t have the same bite as other books.

Again who knows. I don’t
 
Unfortunately, 'its fine example of his early poetry' had been screwed up a bit.

You should try Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame. The book was released in 1974, and it covers the years 1955-73. Poems from three legendary out-of-print books.There's also a nice foreword by the author.
I forgot about that and haven't been back to Roominghouse since I learned of the screwing up. Right. Good eye.
 
I love Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame. I don't own Play, but I do remember liking what I read of it several years ago. It has been a long time. Maybe I only actually read a few selected poems from it, if it really is a poor effort overall!

Until now, I didn't know about the severe "Martinizing" issues with The Roominghouse Madrigals. I was aware that Martin had messed with certain books, here and there, when Buk was alive, but I didn't know that it ever was that bad with the poetry. What a frustrating disappointment. I wonder if the Madrigals will ever be re-published in a corrected state? Damn...
 
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I like Love is a Dog from Hell and Burning. I did like reading Roominghouse too, but since Martin has messed with that one, that really puts a stick in my ass. Hmph!
 
I've been back and forth, many times, over the years, with my opinion of Love is a Dog from Hell.

It has some really great poems-- some of my favorites, such as "Alone with Everybody," "One For the Shoeshine Man," and the one which has a title consisting of just his phone number. I love those three poems, and there are others in the book which I really like.

I do think that his writing could slide into laziness and being a bit formulaic, at times, in the book though-- as if he had figured out what his audience wanted from him and was now fine with simply giving it to them. Just my view. I do like Love is a Dog from Hell much more now than I did, say, ten years ago.

One of my very favorite poetry books from him is Mockingbird Wish Me Luck. That might be my second favorite of them all (that I've read at this point-- I still have a few to go), behind Last Night of the Earth Poems. That latter one just keeps knocking me out, year after year.
 
He admits he was lazy... But Mr. Andreas has been the closest to this one. He can show you the changes and I can show more, but there was no way Buk could have compared his poems with the edited ones at the time. All those poems were in magazines no one had access to brfore the internet.

He probably didn't even read them, but if he did, he had no way of confirmimg they were the same as the originals...
 
Too many edits in the Black Sparrow books, let alone the posthumous destruction, so my favorites now are clearly the Back to the Machinegun Volumes. In total almost 500(!) poems. A great work accomplished by some unknown Bukowski experts.
 
Tie between Roominghouse and Days Run Over (depends on my mood any given day). Def my desert island books. They were the first 2 I bought in '87 and '88...
Then prob Burning or Mockingbird.

(yes, I'm back after 13 years...)
 
Hi mjp: perfect response!

I'm thinking I should mosey over to the New Blood thread and re-intro myself officially, at the very least to get my posts up to a whopping 3... before I start becoming an active member (as I had promised years ago and never delivered upon)...
 
Dangling in the Tournefortia has been on my end table for months and I never have any problem knocking a few poems out every time I sit on my couch. My favorite has to got to be Love is a Dog From Hell because it was my first introduction to Buk that happened by chance of pulling it off the shelf at a Borders. The title punched me in the gut and I’ve been bleeding internally ever since. That was a good find.
 

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