Open All Night

"A testament to a fierce inverted work ethic, a belief in self-help through unending self-attention, a refusal to waste even the smallest table scrap of world or time": that same tenacity and commitment to his art which New York Times critic Jennifer Schuessler found in the Bukowski collection What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire (Black Sparrow, 1999) can again be seen in the legendary bard's latest posthumous verse compilation. Several books after his demise, Buk still hasn't lost his revenant power. Think Villon as Lazarus, Celine popping out of the flames, Fante revivified.

Written from the early 1980s up to the time of his death in 1994, these 189 recovered poems suggest that even his heaviest adversary, encroaching mortality, never made Bukowski flinch. The courage is undaunted, even if there's a strong hint of rue mixed into these deadpan nightcap comedies.