The Night Torn Mad With Footsteps

A posthumous masterwork of raw grit, racetrack bets, and cheap rooms.

This collection of previously unpublished poems offers the author's take on squabbling neighbours, off-kilter lovers, would-be hangers-on, and the loneliness of a man afflicted with acute powers of observation.

The volume gathers late-career work tracing decades across Los Angeles, moving from dingy Hollywood apartments along DeLongpre Avenue to a sunlit home in San Pedro.

Bukowski revisits graveyard-shift factory lines, the betting windows at Santa Anita and Del Mar, and the strained compromises of domestic life.

The poems track a life stripped of ceremony, recording the wear and tear of low-rent rooming houses and the stubborn endurance of ordinary survival.

The tone is gritty and amusing, spiralling out towards a cock-eyed wisdom.

• American Poetry: Late-career verses capturing late-night typing sessions in San Pedro.
• Everyday Survival: Verses capturing stubborn strays in the yard.
• Unsentimental Humor: Clear-eyed assessments of literary pretensions and eccentric rooming-house landlords.
• 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.