Absence of the Hero, Vol. 2 Book

OK, I don't know if this book, published posthumously, is actually "amazing", but IMHO Charles Buskowski, aka the Buk, IS amazing. Every time I re-read Bukowski, I am amazed. The Buk was brilliant, just f'ng brilliant. I absolutely agree with his point of view. How can I not love someone who articulates my own feelings and perceptions of this world? I meet too many Bukowksi fans who first and foremost think of him as a drunk, fans who are f'ing drunks themselves, because they want to be Bukowskians. Fools. Someone once told me that supposedly Oscar Wilde said, "All poets are drunks, but not all drunks are poets." So, these fools I have met in my life, in person or virtually (aka on-line), love beer, getting drunk, and they write what they call poetry, sad, boring sh.t they call poetry. Oh, but geeze, they are so excited and full of life, full of enthusiasm, with lots of friends, and so full of sh.t. Some of them mean well, though, and are passionate, so I can't help but have a heart for them, even if I don't think they are much as poets. But judging poetry, really, is personal taste and expectations, at the end of the day. I love poetry "that makes the top of my head feel as if it were physically removed", as Dickinson expressed it. I hope I got that quote right; I didn't double-check, but it's more or less what she said/wrote, anyway. What she is saying, Dickinson, I mean, is that she loved poetry that "blew her mind". That's exactly how I feel about it. Poetry, short stories, any kind of writing, if it "blows my mind", well, hell, I love it. And the Buk blows my mind. It just happens that most my fave writers (well, artists of any kind) are, or were, drunks. (It's never been said, but it wouldn't surprise me if Dickinson was a "wine-ah" herself. I mean, she might've often indulged in a glass or two or three of wine, red wine. Shoot, surely...) My fave artists are/were drunks or drug addicts. Addicts of some type. Even sex addicts. But I don't love drunks, and drug addicts, or sex addicts per se. Just because you are a drunk, or a drug addict, or a sex addict, doesn't mean you are a genius. What I love is genius and art. It's kind of a thing about artists, I mean, Great Artists. They have issues, and, well, they anesthetize themselves. They are extraordinarily sensitive people, which is what makes them express themselves through art. But not all art is a work of genius, and not all artists are genius. The ordinary person doesn't have "it", including some very intelligent people. Genius is something special. It's god-given, so to speak. People are just born with it. As was the Buk. I loved reading this collection of stories and essays written by the brilliant Charles Bukowski, the Buk, a genius.