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“The Walt Whitman of Los Angeles.”
—Joyce Carol Oates
“He brought everybody down to earth, even the angels.”
—Leonard Cohen, songwriter
Arguably the most imitated and influential American poet of the previous half-century, Charles Bukowski remains a counter-culture icon more than a decade after his death. The Continual Condition is a collection of never-before-published poems by the inimitable Bukowski—raw, tough, odes to alcohol, women, work, and despair by a rebel author equally adept at poetry and prose. Charles Bukowski lives on in The Continual Condition, a godsend for admirers of his previous collections Slouching Toward Nirvana, The Pleasures of the Damned, and Love is a Dog From Hell, as well as his novels Factotum, Ham on Rye, and Pulp.
This collection of never-before-published work captures the raw power that made him a legend:
- Dirty Realism: Find the profound in the profane with tough, unflinching odes to alcohol, women, work, and despair.
- The Los Angeles Poet: Experience the gritty streets, racetracks, and smoky bars of L.A. through the eyes of its most honest and infamous chronicler.
- A Counter-Culture Icon: Discover the inimitable, anti-establishment voice that influenced generations of writers, artists, and rebels.
- Never-Before-Published Work: A must-have final transmission for longtime fans and the perfect, potent introduction for new readers.
Charles Bukowski
Charles Bukowski is one of America’s best-known contemporary writers of poetry and prose and, many would claim, its most influential and imitated poet. He was born in 1920 in Andernach, Germany, to an American soldier father and a German mother, and brought to the United States at the age of two. He was raised in Los Angeles and lived there for over fifty years. He died in San Pedro, California, on March 9, 1994, at the age of seventy-three, shortly after completing his last novel, Pulp.
Abel Debritto, a former Fulbright scholar and current Marie Curie fellow, works in the digital humanities. He is the author of Charles Bukowski, King of the Underground, and the editor of the Bukowski collections On Writing, On Cats, and On Love.
More by Charles Bukowski
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