Rating: 
Summary: Poetry of courage, candor, humor and human understanding.
Review: The poetry collected in the late Charles Bukowski's What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through The Fire takes the reader into the mind and imagination of a keen observer of the human condition. The courage, candor, humor, and human understanding of Bukowski's poetry blends to create a kind of intuitive contact and an innate wisdom that will engage the intellect as well as the emotions of the reader. Full Moon: red flowers of love/cut at the stem/passion has its own/way/and hatred too./the curtain blows open/and the sky is black/out there tonight./across the way/a man and a woman/standing up against a darkened/wall,/the red moon/whirls,/a mouse runs along/the windowsill/changing colors./I am alone in torn levis/and a white sweat shirt,/she's with her man now/in the shadow of that wall/and as he enters her/I draw upon my/cigarette.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Stuff Hidden Inside Average Works
Review: There are some really good poems in this book, but you'll read about 10 average poems before you get a real gem. The book is loosely arranged into three sections, sort of: Childhood and Young Adult poems, Middle Age poems, and Senior Citizen poems; but since all are from the viewpoint of Charles Bukowski, there's plenty of entertainment value everywhere. His recurring themes are women, betting on horse racing, dogs, writers and artists, writing, day jobs, jail time, and autobiographical moments. Although his viewpoint is usually offbeat and amusing, only once in awhile do you come across a really deep statement about life, the kind of philosophical statements that teach us something and make us realize something about humanity, which is the mark of a really important poet. This book is by a really important poet, but he only gets really deep in one out of every ten poems. Most of these poems are kind of pointless, and he even says that a few times himself, in some of these poems. One thing I didn't like is the lack of background info. There is only a one page bio, at the end of the book, but nowhere else does the publisher explain how these poems were selected to be put together here, or where and when these poems were written. This is the first Bukowski poetry book that I've ever read. I like the fact that it is a few hundred pages worth of cool poems. It's a decent value for your money, but it's likely that other Buk collections are better places to start reading Buk, though I don't know which ones they are yet.
Rating: 
Summary: A Strong New Collection
Review: This is the best new Bukowski poetry collection since THE LAST NIGHT OF THE EARTH POEMS, mainly because of the inclusion of older poems from his more "lyrical" period. Readers of the Wormwood Review will recognize many of the poems printed here for the first time in book form (although credit is not given to any individual magazine). Unlike the last two Bukowski collections DEATH is not the main theme here (although Buk wrote about his imminent demise as far back as the '60s), but more "slices of life" harkening back to his days in East Hollywood and beyond. Black Sparrow promises more poetry collections in the future, my God, how MUCH did this man write? I'll get those, too, why stop now? Anyone serious about Bukowski should also buy a copy of Aaron Krumhansl's DESCRIPTIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY. Hail, hail.
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