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Love is a Dog from Hell
Poems rising from and returning to Bukowski's personal experiences reflect people, objects, places, and events of the external world, and reflects on them, on their way out and back.
Paperback, First Ecco edition, 312 pages
Published
May 31st 2002
by Ecco (An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers)
(first published 1977)
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(showing
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people are not good to each other.
perhaps if they were
our deaths would not be so sad.
Love him or hate him, Charles Bukowski was a bitter, drunken asshole with a gift for putting onto paper all the ugliness and baseness hiding in the human heart. Before jumping into the discovery and thoughts that are the inspiration for this ramble about the dirty old writer, a few moments should be spent on the actual poetry found in this volume. I’ve always enjoyed the earlier Bukowski, before he became too ja...more
perhaps if they were
our deaths would not be so sad.
Love him or hate him, Charles Bukowski was a bitter, drunken asshole with a gift for putting onto paper all the ugliness and baseness hiding in the human heart. Before jumping into the discovery and thoughts that are the inspiration for this ramble about the dirty old writer, a few moments should be spent on the actual poetry found in this volume. I’ve always enjoyed the earlier Bukowski, before he became too ja...more
Don't tell me I don't get it. I know I probably don't. But Jesus Christ, if I have to read one more poem about the women he's screwed and the women who've screwed him, I'm going to start writing my own collection of poetry about the cereal I eat in the morning and try to publish that.
Granted, I am not a great lover of poetry. And I have very low tolerance for people who want to eloquently bemoan about their shitty lives without seemingly caring to get their shit together. Honestly, I'm not reall...more
Granted, I am not a great lover of poetry. And I have very low tolerance for people who want to eloquently bemoan about their shitty lives without seemingly caring to get their shit together. Honestly, I'm not reall...more
Bukowski. Here's a poem.
I don’t know how many bottles of beer
I have consumed while waiting for things
to get better
I don’t know how much wine and whisky
and beer
mostly beer
I have consumed after
splits with women—
waiting for the phone to ring
waiting for the sound of footsteps,
and the phone to ring
waiting for the sounds of footsteps,
and the phone never rings
until much later
and the footsteps never arrive
until much later
when my stomach is coming up
out of my mouth
they arrive as fresh a...more
I don’t know how many bottles of beer
I have consumed while waiting for things
to get better
I don’t know how much wine and whisky
and beer
mostly beer
I have consumed after
splits with women—
waiting for the phone to ring
waiting for the sound of footsteps,
and the phone to ring
waiting for the sounds of footsteps,
and the phone never rings
until much later
and the footsteps never arrive
until much later
when my stomach is coming up
out of my mouth
they arrive as fresh a...more
An Almost Made Up Poem
I see you drinking at a fountain with tiny
blue hands, no, your hands are not tiny
they are small, and the fountain is in France
where you wrote me that last letter and
I answered and never heard from you again.
you used to write insane poems about
ANGELS AND GOD, all in upper case, and you
knew famous artists and most of them
were your lovers, and I wrote back, it’ all right,
go ahead, enter their lives, I’ not jealous
because we’ never met. we got close once in
New Orleans, one half...more
Bukowski is one of those poets you can show to people who swear up & down that poetry is all rhyming & flowers. Even if you hate Bukowski, you must admit that he's an original. I love Bukowski. His poems are a perfect break from the 'real' world. They're brutally honest & lovely in their grotesqueness. This collection is wonderful. Sure it isn't for the faint of heart, but Bukowski really does prove that poetry comes in all shapes & sizes.
وحيدا مع العالم أجمع
اللحم يغطي العظام
ثم يضيفون دماغا
وأحيانا روحا.
النساء يضربن
المزهريات عرض الحائط
والرجال يفرطون في السكر
ولا أحد يجد ضالته،
لكنهم يحتفظون جميعا بالأمل
زاحفين من سرير لآخر.
اللحم يبحث عن ما هو أَنْفَسُ من اللحم.
ليس هناك أي خلاص:
كلنا منذورين لقدرٍ فريد.
لا أحد يعثرُ علي مثيله.
امتلأت المدينة بالقاذورات
امتلأت المزابل
امتلأت الملاجئ
امتلأت المستشفيات
امتلأت المقابر
إنها فعلا الأشياءُ الوحيدة
التي تمتلئ.
اللحم يغطي العظام
ثم يضيفون دماغا
وأحيانا روحا.
النساء يضربن
المزهريات عرض الحائط
والرجال يفرطون في السكر
ولا أحد يجد ضالته،
لكنهم يحتفظون جميعا بالأمل
زاحفين من سرير لآخر.
اللحم يبحث عن ما هو أَنْفَسُ من اللحم.
ليس هناك أي خلاص:
كلنا منذورين لقدرٍ فريد.
لا أحد يعثرُ علي مثيله.
امتلأت المدينة بالقاذورات
امتلأت المزابل
امتلأت الملاجئ
امتلأت المستشفيات
امتلأت المقابر
إنها فعلا الأشياءُ الوحيدة
التي تمتلئ.
I don't believe that any reviewer can properly review poetry. There are too many different assumptions, perspectives, and overall feelings that a person can have toward a set of words. That being said, Bukowski's writing is something that I enjoy reading. He is a dark, bitter, and drunken asshole, but I tend to either hate him and/or sympathize with him. Then, at times...I would want to have a drink with this man. He is quite the character. Instead of talking about the themes, ups and downs of h...more
Jan 11, 2013
Aritry Das
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
people who like beat poetry
Recommended to Aritry by:
Atindriyo
Shelves:
favorites
You either love Bukowski or you don't. There is no in between these two choices.
Life as we live it - is depicted in his verses like a nude woman, stripped off all covers and ornaments, bared, with all the beauty and ugliness. There's no pretension, there's no guilt, only bare faces with intense eyes of his muses, and objects and every little nice things and dirty stuff, lots of drunkenness and love, in various forms. I love this book of poems and I don't need to say why. You like reading Bukowsk...more
Life as we live it - is depicted in his verses like a nude woman, stripped off all covers and ornaments, bared, with all the beauty and ugliness. There's no pretension, there's no guilt, only bare faces with intense eyes of his muses, and objects and every little nice things and dirty stuff, lots of drunkenness and love, in various forms. I love this book of poems and I don't need to say why. You like reading Bukowsk...more
Aug 09, 2011
Ryan Milbrath
added it
Bukowski’s poetry brings to mind the free verse ranting found on scrawled on bathroom stalls with permanent marker. Love is a Dog from Hell provides a collection of his finest prose on woman, every-day living, drinking, and of – of course – love (in its most low and basest forms).
I believe Bukowski is one of the greatest poets in the modern world of poetry not because of his style, topics, rhyme schemes, or his connection with the beats. I believe he is one of the best because of his honesty. L...more
I believe Bukowski is one of the greatest poets in the modern world of poetry not because of his style, topics, rhyme schemes, or his connection with the beats. I believe he is one of the best because of his honesty. L...more
I did not enjoy this collection nearly as much as what I have already read by Bukowski, though this was still well worth my time. I had planned on changing my rating to 3 stars but then I started flipping to the pages I had saved and I am now comfortable with the 4 stars. Once again, when I had finished, the book looked very important and worthy, with so many of my little paper scraps hanging out, noting the pages of poems I did not want to forget.
This collection lacked the fire I felt in the l...more
This collection lacked the fire I felt in the l...more
Bukowski has so many books of poetry that it almost staggers the imagination; if one were to rank them in over-all quality, i would have to say this is in his top five. But with Bukowski that is really leaving out a lot of books; he has over forty just of poetry alone! But getting back to the book at hand, this is definitely one of his best. Written as his early to mid 1970s underground cult hero/legend status was firmly rising to a peak, this collection shows him to be as much the sensitive suf...more
Prendete un essere umano che è stato mille volte e più deluso dall’amore e chiedetegli cosa ne pensa. Riuscirà ad inanellare una serie di similitudini e metafore perfette che probabilmente riuscirete a capire solo se siete stati delusi mille e più volte anche voi. ”Love is a dog from hell”.. che, forse, non è così?
Bukowski di amore ne sapeva un sacco in quanto si innamorava troppo facilmente. In fatto di amore lui era il Sognatore. Ci sono certe persone che appena nascono iniziano a pensare all’...more
Bukowski di amore ne sapeva un sacco in quanto si innamorava troppo facilmente. In fatto di amore lui era il Sognatore. Ci sono certe persone che appena nascono iniziano a pensare all’...more
Love for this romantic man was when the love of his life packed her bags and left him for eternity, love was shouting and yelling and throwing things to cause pain. In Love Is A Dog From Hell, underlies the secret of a man who knew tough love better than any of us could. There was a lot of love, or what he would call love surrounding his entire life. For Bukowski love came in empty bourbon bottle form or a punch in the face and women who would leave his side to never return before he woke up in...more
I just happened on this one in a bookstore and sat down to read a bit. Whoa! As a junior in high school I was just getting into literature that was off the beaten path, and this just about blew my mind. I ended up writing my junior year literary analysis paper on his prose. It was called "Banality and Booze: Charles Bukowski Doesn't Like You." I was lucky to find him.
Ever felt like there was no one for you, nothing and no one who could hold your existence? As if you were drifting through life-going from person to person, place to place, job to job? Read this-it might wake you up. And make you feel a lot less lonely. Devastatingly, shatteringly beautiful.
I haven't read every poem in this collection, but poetry collections aren't meant to be read from cover to cover like novels. I feel qualified to opine on a poetry collection when I've read over 2/3rd of the contents, and I'm a little over that point now with this one.
Someone whose poetic sensibilities I trust recommended this particular one to me. I like it. Bukowski writes in choppy, demotic declarations, writes about seedy, sordid places and messed-up, sexy situations. I can't tell if he's a...more
Someone whose poetic sensibilities I trust recommended this particular one to me. I like it. Bukowski writes in choppy, demotic declarations, writes about seedy, sordid places and messed-up, sexy situations. I can't tell if he's a...more
بوكوفسكي ذلك الرجل الذي يكتب بتأثير الجعة، حقًا هو كذلك، هو الشاعر الذي يوجّه كاميرا قصائده إلى الناس المهمشين، الفقراء، الذين لا وجود لهم في الحياة، يكتب عن الشيخوخة بطريقة تجعلها غريبة، كيف لم ننتبه لها، ماذا فعلنا حتى وصلنا إليها.
"الألم زهرة...الألم زهور".
يكتب عن المثقف وعن المجنون وعن الاجتماعي.
"بعضهم يفقد عقله ويصبح روحًا:
المجنون.
بعضهم يفقد روحه ويصبح عقلاً:
المثقف.
بعضهم يفقد الاثنين:
المقبول اجتماعيًا".
"الألم زهرة...الألم زهور".
يكتب عن المثقف وعن المجنون وعن الاجتماعي.
"بعضهم يفقد عقله ويصبح روحًا:
المجنون.
بعضهم يفقد روحه ويصبح عقلاً:
المثقف.
بعضهم يفقد الاثنين:
المقبول اجتماعيًا".
قصيدة بوكوفسكي ذكية، ولكنها ليست فجة. هي مضحكة في أحايين كثيرة، ومبكية في أحايين أكثر، ولا مبالية غالباً.
المبالاة هي ما لم يعجبني، أحس بأن شرط الشعر هو انفتاحٌ مطلق على العالم، ولا يسعك أن تكون متفرجاً لا مبالياً إلى هذه الدرجة، ولكن انحيازه - غير المباشر - إلى المسحوقين، الهامشيين، يطفو على السطح من حينٍ إلى آخر، ويفضح إنسانيته.
وجدتُ بأنك كلما تقدمت في الكتاب صارت القصائد أجمل / أطرف / أقسى ..
I love, love, love Bukowski. And here is why I love him.
"she wore a platinum blonde wig
and her face was rouged and powdered
and she put the lipstick on
making a huge painted mouth
and her neck was wrinkled
but she still had the ass of a young girl
and the legs were good.
she wore blue panties and I took them off
raised her dress, and with the TV flickering
I took her standing up.
as we struggled around the room
(I'm fucking the grave, I thought, I'm
bringing the dead back to life,
marvelous
so marvelous
like...more
"she wore a platinum blonde wig
and her face was rouged and powdered
and she put the lipstick on
making a huge painted mouth
and her neck was wrinkled
but she still had the ass of a young girl
and the legs were good.
she wore blue panties and I took them off
raised her dress, and with the TV flickering
I took her standing up.
as we struggled around the room
(I'm fucking the grave, I thought, I'm
bringing the dead back to life,
marvelous
so marvelous
like...more
من أروع الدواوين المترجمة التي مرت عليّ، واعتقد أن سبب روعة القصائد، استخدامه لبعض الصور والمفارقات، وتوظيف تقنية القص والنهايات الفجة والصادمة، الإشتغال على الأشياء التفاهة والسخيفة والإهتمام بها هو ما جعل هذا الشعر بهذه الروعة والتفرد، طبعاً هذا الديوان عبارة عن مختارات، كم أتمنى أن تترجم كل دواوين هذا الرجل للعربية.
"Don't bring a whore, I'll only fall in love with her."
The verse appears more than once in Charles Bukowski's set of poems, "Love is a Dog From Hell." The majority of the poems are devoted to the various muses of his life, lovers and exes, some of them overlapping. Each one of these women is studied, catalogued, screwed, licked, tickled, and nailed into this shadowbox of poems like spread eagled Monarch specimens, not a single detail or secret concealed.
The human condition in this volume is show...more
The verse appears more than once in Charles Bukowski's set of poems, "Love is a Dog From Hell." The majority of the poems are devoted to the various muses of his life, lovers and exes, some of them overlapping. Each one of these women is studied, catalogued, screwed, licked, tickled, and nailed into this shadowbox of poems like spread eagled Monarch specimens, not a single detail or secret concealed.
The human condition in this volume is show...more
'what they want
Vallejo writing about
loneliness while starving to
death;
Van Gogh's ear rejected by a
whore;
Rimbaud running off to Africa
to look for gold and finding
an incurable case of syphilis;
Beethoven gone deaf;
Pound dragged through the streets
in a cage;
Chatterton taking rat poison;
Hemingway's brains dropping into
the orange juice;
Pascal cutting his wrists
in the bathtub;
Artaud locked up with the mad;
Dostoevsky stood up against a wall;
Crane jumping into a boat propeller;
Lorca sh...more
Vallejo writing about
loneliness while starving to
death;
Van Gogh's ear rejected by a
whore;
Rimbaud running off to Africa
to look for gold and finding
an incurable case of syphilis;
Beethoven gone deaf;
Pound dragged through the streets
in a cage;
Chatterton taking rat poison;
Hemingway's brains dropping into
the orange juice;
Pascal cutting his wrists
in the bathtub;
Artaud locked up with the mad;
Dostoevsky stood up against a wall;
Crane jumping into a boat propeller;
Lorca sh...more
i bought this book as a birthday present for my first love, when i was still in love with him, before i knew i was in love with him, but long after i should have figured it out. we were apart for the summer, and i used post-it notes to make comments where i thought we could have a discussion. it remains the only bukowski collection i've ever read cover to cover. i admire bukowski in a lot of ways, and then there are things about him that i absolutely can't stand. but the realism in his work is u...more
The first Bukowski collection I read was the Roominghouse Madrigals. Though I loved a lot of pieces in Love is a Dog from Hell, it didn't hit me as many times as Roominghouse.
I must say, though, that this one contains one of my favorite Buk poems, "Quiet Clean Girls in Gingham Dresses". A great collection from Buk, I just happen to enjoy Roominghouse more.
I must say, though, that this one contains one of my favorite Buk poems, "Quiet Clean Girls in Gingham Dresses". A great collection from Buk, I just happen to enjoy Roominghouse more.
And the award for the biggest literaturized crap in the history goes to...Bukowksi, again and again. It's like going back to an old lover, you give them a second chance even if you already know you are going to be served the same shit all over again. But right now I can figure out why people like him - because it makes them feel special. If somebody so lousy and writing so poorly can make a big deal out of it, somehow it makes them all feel better about themselves. I swear to god, I would like t...more
This book of poems is classic Bukowski: women, booze and more women. One has to be in a certain mindset to read his poems. The poems are easily accessible in terms of reading and comprehension, yet when read in large amounts can be overwhelming because of their repetition and similarity of content. Here is one of his poems about poets.
an unkind poem
They go on writing
pumping out poems —
young boys and college professors
wives who drink wine all afternoon
while their husbands work,
they go on writing
t...more
an unkind poem
They go on writing
pumping out poems —
young boys and college professors
wives who drink wine all afternoon
while their husbands work,
they go on writing
t...more
Reading Bukowski sometimes feels as I imagine licking the bottom of an ashtray would taste like, only for some maybe not so hard to understand reason I can't bring myself to want to lick an ashtray, bottom or top. Who else could write like he does and I like it?
Bukowski has strange sweet spots buried deep inside graphic verse that pull. It's writing so raw, descriptive, and visceral that I'm glad to read his account instead of living it myself. Images come to mind of my uncle, who was nothing o...more
Bukowski has strange sweet spots buried deep inside graphic verse that pull. It's writing so raw, descriptive, and visceral that I'm glad to read his account instead of living it myself. Images come to mind of my uncle, who was nothing o...more
So what if people think he was the cliche alcoholic writer. I love Bukowski's writing, particularly his poems. His writing is grumpy and sometimes a bit depressing, but in an interesting and kind of enjoyable way. And though he may have been a womanizer he was definitely not a misogynist, he loved women, a lot.
I don’t know how many bottles of beer
I have consumed while waiting for things
to get better
I don’t know how much wine and whisky
and beer
mostly beer
I have consumed after
splits with women—
wa...more
I don’t know how many bottles of beer
I have consumed while waiting for things
to get better
I don’t know how much wine and whisky
and beer
mostly beer
I have consumed after
splits with women—
wa...more
I first found Charles Bukowski when searching for a book for Sarah for Christmas one year. I stumbled upon "Ham On Rye" (in fact I think I mention this same thing in my review of that book), and wondered how I never knew of him sooner. He's raw, and honest, almost embarrassingly so. I was very pleased to hear Sean Penn refer to Mr. Bukowski during an interview (The Actor's Studio I believe it was) and Sean's face just came alive when referring to Bukowski. I decided I needed to make it my missio...more
I guess the painful truth is that one Bukowski is more or less like any other Bukowski. They (the publishers?) tried to make this one at least seem different by attaching the years in which these poems were written to the title. The question remains: Does he or does he not love women? I have decided that Chuck is a slave to women, and he is a happy slave at that. He is not a slave to one woman, but he labors in the pursuit of the delightful misery that only a woman can provide. No, not a woman,...more
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
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| Charles Bukowski | 10 | 82 | Mar 31, 2014 11:45AM |
Henry Charles Bukowski (born as Heinrich Karl Bukowski) was a German-born American poet, novelist and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural and economic ambience of his home city of Los Angeles.It is marked by an emphasis on the ordinary lives of poor Americans, the act of writing, alcohol, relationships with women and the drudgery of work. Bukowski wrote thousands...more
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“there is a loneliness in this world so great
that you can see it in the slow movement of
the hands of a clock.
people so tired
mutilated
either by love or no love.
people just are not good to each other
one on one.
the rich are not good to the rich
the poor are not good to the poor.
we are afraid.
our educational system tells us
that we can all be
big-ass winners.
it hasn't told us
about the gutters
or the suicides.
or the terror of one person
aching in one place
alone
untouched
unspoken to
watering a plant.”
—
3014 likes
that you can see it in the slow movement of
the hands of a clock.
people so tired
mutilated
either by love or no love.
people just are not good to each other
one on one.
the rich are not good to the rich
the poor are not good to the poor.
we are afraid.
our educational system tells us
that we can all be
big-ass winners.
it hasn't told us
about the gutters
or the suicides.
or the terror of one person
aching in one place
alone
untouched
unspoken to
watering a plant.”
“I loved you like a man loves a woman he never touches, only writes to, keeps little photographs of.”
—
2410 likes
More quotes…
Dec 06, 2012 09:34PM
Dec 06, 2012 09:45PM