Book Review: Readings

The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain: New Poems

Ecco, 297 pp., $27.50

When the words "poetry" or "poet" come up, Charles Bukowski is not usually the name that springs forth. Bukowski's plainspoken, minimalist poems read more like extremely short stories than verse. The Flash of Lightning Behind the Mountain contains a collection set aside to be published posthumously (Bukowski and his liver managed to hold on till March of 1994), yet there are no grand revelations into the life and times of the author (or of his alter ego, Hank Chinaski) to be discovered within. Bukowski fills his plate here from the same buffet he always has: his stifling, violent, and ultimately sad father; the sometimes joyous – usually depressing – nature of the horse track; the drudgery associated with menial employment; unemployment; the beauty and horror of bar fights; flatulence; constipation; nausea; societal malaise; and finally, hard, constant drinking, and everything related to the alcoholic lifestyle. Oh yes, and on rare occasion, love. But alcohol was the one true constant in his life and in the lives of his characters. He writes of his alcoholism in the way that a mother would of her newborn child – fawningly, lovingly, and reverently. In "Club Hell, 1942" he offers, "the next bottle was all that/mattered./to hell with food, to hell with/the rent/the next bottle solved/ everything/and if you could get two or/three or four bottles ahead/then life was really good." This collection is not even close to where one would begin delving into the writings of Bukowski – his novels Women and Ham on Rye, as well as his poetry collections Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame and Love Is a Dog From Hell are far more foundational – but Flash of Lightning could serve to satiate the appetites of rabid Bukowskiphiles, of which there are many. Here's to Chuck. Cheers.