[Pomes All Sizes.]

So speaking of writing. I remember having a talk with someone a while back about Bukowski and something the person said is something I've heard said plenty of times before about Bukowski. If you've read one Bukowski poem you've read them all. I hate that people think this and it bugs me when anyone makes blanket generalizations and statements like that about anything. Although I do suppose that I'm occasionally guilty of the same thing really and I usually only reserve such a dismissive statement for things that I somehow don't quite appreciate. [You know?]

I mean, there is some measure of truth in statements like 'if you've seen one then you've seen them all' and I sometimes cite babies and Ansel Adams photos as examples of such proof. [The babies bit I use just to bug people that are loopy over some admittedly beautiful newborn and the Ansel Adams bit because I suppose I honestly am not blown away by his work.]

So, of course, I do understand that particular point of view regardless of whether or not it's genuine or purposely dismissive or whatever. And I do understand, to a small degree, what that person meant about Bukowski poems. To some people a Bukowski poem might read like this: Hungover. Wake half-drunk to a headache and a dead whore in the bathtub. Fish for loose change in the couch cushion for beer money. Car won't start. Walk to liquor store imagining fond memories of aforementioned dead whore. Return home to find entire apartment empty of furniture and the bathtub empty. Drink beer alone. Write a poem about the whole day. The end. And maybe that's true to a degree. But somewhere in the middle of all of that you'll almost always find some line or two that is way more than enough to lay you out flat. I've waded through plenty of Bukowski poems that at first read like I may have actually read them before even though I know I haven't because I also know that I'll not be let down by him in the end. So there are some running themes in his work. If drinking and gambling and crazed prostitutes are a bulk of what you experience every day then I'm sure you'll end up using some similar-sounding material. But the beauty part, I think, about Bukowski's work is that even amidst all of his insanely prolific drinking and perpetual Bad Craziness he wrote such an insanely large body of work. And although one poem might occasionally read a bit too closely to something else he's written he manages beautifully in pretty much every poem to work in at least this one perfect and lovely line that always made up for the rest. And that might be the worst thing that I could ever say about him and that's saying a lot if you ask me.]

But speaking of writing, I was interested in some of your favorite lines in poems or novels or even songs. Or whatever else.

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