Charles Bukowski — a gutter laureate who wrote beautifully and frankly about drinking, fighting, women, horse racing and most every aspect of life's underbelly — has been dead for 25 years as of this month.
But, by all indications, his passing has done nothing to hurt his output.
More than a dozen collections of old poems and letters have been published since the death of Bukowski. But those works have been rightfully criticized as second rate (there's a reason they weren't released when Bukowski was alive). Hence, it is his older poems, short stories and novels — which inspired the movies “Barfly” and “Factotum,” starring Mickey Rourke and Matt Dillon, respectively — on which the hard-living Bukowski's reputation and collectibles market are built.
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