by Charles Bukowski
307 pages, 1977, Black Sparrow Press

Charles Bukowski was an ugly man. Every-branch-of-the-ugly-tree ugly. His lifestyle didn’t help matters for his face. He was a boxer and was often involved in bar fights. He drank and womanized in equally excessive quantities. But writers aren’t actors or singers, and good looks aren’t necessary to advance your career. Bukowski’s talent lay in his ability to take all the grime, seediness, ugliness and realism of his day-to-day life and transform it into beautiful works.
 
“462-0614”
I get many phonecalls now
They are all alike.
“are you Charles Bukowski,
the writer?”
“yes,” I tell them.
and they tell me
that they understand my
writing,
and some of them are writers
or want to be writers
and they have dull and
horrible jobs
and they can’t face the room
the apartment
the walls
that night—
they want somebody to talk
to,
and they can’t believe
that I can’t help them
that I don’t know the words.
they can’t believe
that often now
I double up in my  room
grab my gut
and say
“Jesus Jesus
Jesus, not
again!”
they can’t believe
that the loveless
people
the streets
the loneliness
the walls
are mine too.
and when I hang
up the phone
they think I have
held back my
secret.

I don’t write out of
knowledge.
when the phone rings
I too would like to hear words
that might ease
some of this.

that’s why my number’s
listed.
 
Although a writer nearly his whole life, Bukowski really hit his stride in the 1970s. He was in his 50s, living in Los Angeles, his favorite town. His fame was on the rise, and with it came more money and women and drink. “Love is a Dog from Hell” is largely autobiographical, filled with poems detailing the debauchery that arose from the madness of those years. Bukowski’s poetry strikes like a fist because it is filled with blunt truths, harsh language and perverse imagery. But it was his sweet sentimentality and humble resignation with the world, his wish for the best for all of humanity, that made him the most generous, loveliest poet of them all.