Drinking with Bukowski

Book excerpt: The 20th century's greatest poet was a guy from L.A. called Hank, who talked straight, drank hard, faced truth, and exposed beauty and vulnerability like no other in his place and time. Drinking with Bukowski is a celebration of that utterly original voice featuring contributions from everyone from the women who loved him to the Hollywood cognoscenti who courted him, from writers who admired him and actors who tried to emulate him to the barflies, strippers, gangsters, poets, crazies, and dreamers who knew him: Raymond Carver, Wanda Coleman, Harold Norse, Michael C. Ford, and Paul Vangelisti pay homage and recount the Dionysian days of L.A. poetry; record producer Harvey Robert Kubernik and journalist Barry Miles remember capturing Buk on vinyl for the first time; novelist Steve Abee remembers the early days of L.A.'s underground newspapers - Open City and the L.A. Free Press - Bukowski's early stomping grounds.