Sign in with Facebook
Loading...
21st out of 337 books
—
137 voters
Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit
"Play the Piano" introduces Charles Bukowski's poetry from the 1970s. He leads a life full of gambling and booze but also finds love. These poems are full of lechery and romance as he struggles to mature.
Paperback, 125 pages
Published
May 31st 2002
by Black Sparrow Books
(first published June 5th 1979)
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
3,000)
This is the first Bukowski book that I ever read. I think Bukowski's importance as an American writer will only grow in the 21st century. The man is already a Hemingway-like figure in Europe.The cultural snobs of academia in America have tried to ignore his work, but that will change. This collection is a grab-bag of previously uncollected poems that Bukowski regularly submitted to small press rags during the late sixties and seventies. These are from the seventies and there are some great poems...more
I don't think I had any idea what kind of a man Bukowski was back when I borrowed Post Office from the library and read the whole thing over the course of a single afternoon when I was 14 or 15 - that book helped me form an opinion of him as a writer. I had a much better understanding of the autobiographical nature of his work and his own persona when I read Women years later. Yet, my attitude wasn't much different while reading the latter. When it comes to the style he employed in his novels, m...more
Unsurprisingly, I am once again floored. I finished this book in less than a day and I felt like a 3 year old who just had her lollipop taken away when it was done. I literally felt pouty that it was over. This series of poems is from the 70's and is incredibly eloquent and harsh at the same time. Each thing I read of Bukowski's is like revealing another piece of an unbearably complex puzzle. Last night I had the house to myself and had set up my netflix so I could have the first in a series of...more
Though it's a slim volume of poetry, this book makes up for its size by packing a huge punch of brilliance. The amazing poems more than outweigh the average poems. Before picking up this book, I'd only read a few of Bukowski's poems and his novel Ham on Rye. This has definitely encouraged me to read more of his poems. Today I bought Love is a Dog From Hell, which I'm very excited to begin!
I'd recommend Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit to a...more
I'd recommend Play the Piano Drunk Like a Percussion Instrument Until the Fingers Begin to Bleed a Bit to a...more
This is my personal favorite of Bukowski's books of poetry. It has such a raw voice to it. So many of the poems in this collection are memorable. This is the book I pull out when someone tells me that they know poetry because they know the 'classics'.
Play The Piano Drunk Like A Percussion Instrument Until The Fingers Begin To Bleed A Bit by Charles Bukowski is small book of big poems. They’re short and shit directly in your head. All of Bukowski’s works have a quality of being from a generation that lived harder, but also from a man who cared less because he saw the futility in everything. His tombstone reads “Don’t Try.” Yet, the poems in Play The Piano Drunk… take your mind to his world of seedy bars, faithless women, and desolate existenc...more
He's a terrible writer, on the surface anyway. Most of his works it feels like he's watching something in time, and he's slowly playing it back for his readers to interpret on their own. He talks of the many women he's loved and the men those women have loved in return. He talks of become a writer, he talks of people he's met, and other things he happens to encounter in life.
All in all I read Bukowski because if I had a choice to be him I'd take it. He's life is filled with regret, boozes, depre...more
All in all I read Bukowski because if I had a choice to be him I'd take it. He's life is filled with regret, boozes, depre...more
I read this when I was like 14. I thought he was brilliant.... turns out, not so much
Not my style. I can appreciate his sparse, stark, raw & ragged style of composition, but I prefer my poetry more poetic, the language more lyrical. This just seems like unremarkable prose chopped into blunt little lines like cocaine. And that doesn't magically transform it into poetry, in my humble opinion. I know he's supposed to be one of the greats, but what exactly is the talent here? I don't see any insightful observation, innovative ideas, interesting rhythm or subject matter, or whate...more
Bukowski the fiction writer and Bukowski the poet always seemed to be two different people. I've read a handful of his poems over the years and recognized a fire in him that is totally lacking from his novel work. In his poems, there lies a confident drunk, asleep at the wheel of life, seamlessly floating on by, content with distraction and apathy. In his fiction, there's an emptiness that's so passive, it's hardly a story at all.
This is the first volume of his poetry that I've read from start t...more
This is the first volume of his poetry that I've read from start t...more
I was a senior in high school and I was looking for poems to read for the UIL competition. I was competing in poetry reading like I did every year. I was going to take state that year. I had finally figured out the only thing the judges wanted: to be entertained.
But I was depressed by all the poems I found. All the other competitors were reading 'Highwayman' and 'Annabelle Lee'. And a lot of the girls would read poems about rape or abuse (going for the high drama payoff).
I was looking for a fun...more
But I was depressed by all the poems I found. All the other competitors were reading 'Highwayman' and 'Annabelle Lee'. And a lot of the girls would read poems about rape or abuse (going for the high drama payoff).
I was looking for a fun...more
Some gems are scattered amongst the poems assembled here. I'm surprised the lesser ones appeared while Buk was still living and writing, though, because they're fit for the company of those minor poems that make up most of his posthumous collections. Nevertheless, when he's on, he shines. His basic observations, brazen line-breaks and black humor will probably lead me to read everything he wrote, in search of those jewels.
From the proud thin dying:
it's the order of things: each one
gets a taste o...more
From the proud thin dying:
it's the order of things: each one
gets a taste o...more
My absolute favorite book of Bukowski poems, probably because it was the first of his books that I read, but it still stands well on its own. I still remember reading that first poem -- about bottle caps -- and thinking, you can write this kind of poetry and sell it??? Up to that point, I had been enveloped by the "masters," who bored me to tears. Bukowski was a real breath of fresh air. I have all of Buk's books. This is his shortest volume of poetry, but I would argue it's one of his best, if...more
" she got up and lit a cigarette, she was trembling all
over. she paced up and down, wild and crazy. she had
a small body. her arms were thin, very thin and when
she screamed and started beating me I held her
wrists and then I got it through the eyes: hatred,
centuries deep and true. I was wrong and graceless and
sick. all the things I had learned had been wasted.
there was no living creature as foul as I
and all my poems were
false. "
over. she paced up and down, wild and crazy. she had
a small body. her arms were thin, very thin and when
she screamed and started beating me I held her
wrists and then I got it through the eyes: hatred,
centuries deep and true. I was wrong and graceless and
sick. all the things I had learned had been wasted.
there was no living creature as foul as I
and all my poems were
false. "
4 likes · like · see review
view 1 comment
Just read Play The Piano Drunk Like A Percussion Instrument Until The Fingers Begin To Bleed A Bit by Charles Bukowski - yes, that's the title.. It's a book of his poetry - not for all; not sappy poetry that is, more like drunken Sailor's stuff.. I thought it was right up the alley with the rest of his literature, though I like his novels much better..
my first bukowski, which means it will always be my favorite. before this I had been angrily writing my own verse in similar, albeit less vulgarly fluid and artful, form. this helped me contextualize the dirty and inappropriate forms of art.
Hoo boy, this was super uneven and I have no real idea how to rate it. Some of the poems were fantastic, others were cringeworthy and super misogynist. I mean, I suppose that's what you sign yourself up for with Bukowski.
My favorites:
Some Picnic, The Strangest Thing, 2 Flies, Fire Station, 5 Dollars, A Radio With Guts, Interviews, Yankee Doodle, Nothing Is As Effective As Defeat, Close Encounters of Another Kind, 59 Cents a Pound, and Art.
Some Picnic, The Strangest Thing, 2 Flies, Fire Station, 5 Dollars, A Radio With Guts, Interviews, Yankee Doodle, Nothing Is As Effective As Defeat, Close Encounters of Another Kind, 59 Cents a Pound, and Art.
Scholars won't touch Bukowski. He's inconsistent, he does a ton of things that don't work. some poems are just plain bad, but when he gets it (and he does a decent amount of the time) it's great.
Perhaps the style of writing was not for me, but I was disappointed by the poetry. Among the mediocre poems were some gems, though, and I feel it was still worth the gander.
If you're looking for the popular image of Bukowski--drunk, misogynist, taking swings at whatever gets close--you can find him here, including perhaps the quintessential Bukowski line in "40,000 flies":
"it's so easy to be a poet
and so hard to be
a man."
This is the slimmest volume of his poetry that I've picked up, and while it's not my favorite, it has some gems. I've never been really disappointed by a book of Bukowski poetry.
Favorites in this collection:
"Leaning on wood," "The souls of dead a...more
"it's so easy to be a poet
and so hard to be
a man."
This is the slimmest volume of his poetry that I've picked up, and while it's not my favorite, it has some gems. I've never been really disappointed by a book of Bukowski poetry.
Favorites in this collection:
"Leaning on wood," "The souls of dead a...more
Some of Bukowski's best, although most "raw", poetry. This is pure emotion from a decadent, masculine point of view. I am probably on my tenth reading.
It took me a while to get into this, but I ended up really, really liking it. I haven't read anything else by Bukowski.
It was raw as f--k. And honest.
It was raw as f--k. And honest.
It's Bukowski, what do you expect? I mostly just love the title, since it describes pretty much exactly what the Brujo has done onstage for about 30 years now.
Great poems. Impossible to review as all of his work is consistent and must be judged as a whole. I'd read this book 10 years ago and re-read today.
Possibly one of the best collections of poetry I have ever read from any poet. No other has elicited so many emotions from me at once.
Charels Bukowski is my father's favorite poet. So, of course, I read Charels Bukowski. It's for reason similar that I've seen every movie ever made with Robert Shaw in the cast: my mother loves Robert Shaw. Looking into the activites and favorites of one's parents tends to give one a better understanding of them than one can (in my opinion) get from just being there. The books people have on their shelves at home, the movies they like, the music they listen to, the way they arrange their kitchen...more
As a person who generally despises poetry, this is a hilarious kick in the face by the inner poeticism of such a talented asshole.
The last poem in the book made the whole thing:
Art
As the
Spirit
Wanes
The
Form
Appears.
Raw indeed. Some poems just pierce through you like a knife, others leave you emptier than you were before.
This collection of poems is so good! I love Charles Bukowski. This is so amazing, I can't deal with it.
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
Charles Bukowski was born in Andernach, Germany on August 16, 1920, the only child of an American soldier and a German mother. At the age of three, he came with his family to the United States and grew up in Los Angeles. He attended Los Angeles City College from 1939 to 1941, then left school and moved to New York City to become a writer. His lack of publishing success at this time caused him to g...more
More about Charles Bukowski...
Share This Book
No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »
“you son of a bitch, she said, I am
trying to build a meaningful
relationship.
you can't build it with a hammer,
he said.”
—
367 people liked it
trying to build a meaningful
relationship.
you can't build it with a hammer,
he said.”
“they pulled Ezra through the streets in a wooden cage. Blake was sure of God. Villon was a mugger. Lorca sucked cock. T. S. Eliot worked a teller's cage”
—
11 people liked it
More quotes…
