Kirjahaku

"Black Summer by Wayne F. Burke is more than a book of poetry. It is an experience to be lived and relived. Burke taps into our most shared experiences of humanity. His conversational verse entices the reader to continue following the exploits of this wandering everyman who searches, yearns for definition, only to find definitions lacking. But the road is all-encompassing. This book is for lovers of a good story, a good life, and is a roadmap for all of us who often find ourselves on the shoulder of life'shighway." - James Benger, author of From the Back"Poems as funny and as tragic as could ever be imagined-from a lifetime of REAL experience in the REAL world." -Howard Frank Mosher, author, A Stranger In The Kingdom."Wayne F. Burke is 65 (going on 66) years old. He reminds me a little of Ed Galing, who wrote poems into his 90's. When I used to see Galing in a publication I always read his poems first not because he was old but because I knew he wouldn't bullshit me. I knew there would be no slickness or pretentiousness, no metaphors stretched out so far you forgot where they started, no look-at-me-being-a-poet, pat me on the head, junk. Just a sensitive, sometimes fucked-up, lonely person writing about the moments of his life." -Mather Schneider"Burke jolts his reader into a state of awareness-one of the high aims of all art." -Arthur Hoyle, author, The Unknown Henry Miller.

IT would be a thankless task to try and separate the reality of the flesh & blood and protoplasmic being known as Charles Bukowski from his auto-mythography-recorded in nearly fifty volumes of poetry and prose. It is not my intent, in any case, to try and do so; nor is it my intent to write a biography. My intent is to bring to light as much of the life as is necessary to the writing of a critique and analysis as well as review of the work. In consideration of "autobiographical fiction" (an oxymoron, I realize) which was Bukowski's m tier, exposition of some of the life is helpful, even necessary to a textual elucidation. I will elucidate out front: to me, Bukowski, as human being, often approaches likeness of a stinking bag of human shit. I am not, however, dwelling here on the personal but on a critical approach, primarily, to the work. BIOWayne F. Burke was born in 1954. After the untimely deaths of his parents he was raised by his paternal grandparents and his Uncle. He attended local public schools and at age seventeen was admitted to the University of Massachusetts, the first of four institutions of higher learning he attended before graduating from GODDARD College in 1979. In the mid-1980's he settled in the central Vermont area (USA) and has remained there since. BUKOWSKI the Ubermensch is his 15th published book. His oeuvre includes ten poetry collections, one book of short stories, and four works of nonfiction. His most recently published nonfiction work, HENRY MILLER, Spirit & Flesh, is also published by Cyberwit.net.

These poems reveal a passionate concreteness of imagery and a rich allusiveness. All the poetic qualities that touch the human heart are here. Liveliness is the most characteristic quality of these poems that show intense emotion and vivid imagination.