cover image Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way: New Poems

Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way: New Poems

Charles Bukowski. Ecco, $27.5 (416pp) ISBN 978-0-06-052735-8

When HarperCollins and Ecco Press acquired part of the Black Sparrow imprint early this year, one big prize was the sprawling, long-popular oeuvre of Charles Bukowski (Barfly; Ham on Rye; Love Is a Dog from Hell). Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way: New Poems, Bukowski's 10th posthumous volume (with several more planned), collects yet more verse about the troubled, garrulous poet's traveling, gambling, thinking, aging, working, not working, romancing, drinking, self-mythologizing and even eating (""I opened a can of roastbeef hash/ and some pickled beets"") as he fought through his blue-collar, beer-hall L.A.