Bone Palace Ballet

This is a collection of 175 previously unpublished works by Bukowski.

It contains yarns about his childhood in the Depression and his early literary passions, his apprentice days as a hard-drinking, starving poetic aspirant, and his later years when he looks back at fate with defiance.

The poems follow his path through cheap Philadelphia roominghouses where he survived on rolled cigarettes, wine, and Brahms. Bukowski recalls reading D. H. Lawrence and Sinclair Lewis under the bedcovers by lamplight while his father bellowed for lights out.

Later pieces find the author in San Pedro, tracking afternoons at the racetrack betting windows, skirmishes with a new computer, and quiet midnight hours with his cats and classical radio.

• American Poetry: Bukowski depicts Depression-era Los Angeles through mock military maneuvers in the dry hills, where boys clashed with wooden sabers and rifle butts beneath a senile general’s binoculars.
• Raw Honesty: Unsentimental family memories surface in sharp vignettes, including a father’s mahogany funeral featuring a hired fifteen-dollar soprano and an unhinged scene beside the open casket.
• Literary Collections: Verses from his late career reflect on correspondence with admirers, including packages of Dutch cigars and portraits of Celine sent to keep him company at the desk.
• Also by This Author: You Get So Alone at Times That It Just Makes Sense, Love is a Dog From Hell and The Last Night of the Earth Poems.