Poetry, operating in complete freedom, leads us to the awareness that we are not as free as we think. By celebrating true love, poetry shows us how little we have loved. By acknowledging Death, poetry reminds us that it is waiting for us. Poetry can distinguish us when we become a mere paste of insignificance. The matter is simple: poetry does all the dirty work.

With or without the intervention of 'high' literary inquiry, Bukowski was a relay runner of a series of top poets: Villon, Coleridge, Whitman, Cendrars, cummings, Berryman, and others, who pushed poetry towards a language that is as immediate and active as possible, each expressing with their own uniqueness the analogies and formulations of a parallel perspective—often extreme—that differed and continues to differ from the universal and coordinated perception.

'What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.' In the case of Charles Bukowski, this is more than a simple expression. It is the statement-declaration of the poet's own life. His work is equally governed by this and requires nothing more than a calm and good-natured reading.

[Excerpt from the introduction of the edition]