Upon Reading a Critical Review

Painting by Kevin Peshkepia


upon reading a critical review


it's difficult to accept
and you look around the room
for the person they are talking
about.

he's not there
he's not here.
he's gone.

by the time they get your book you
are no longer your
book.
you are on the next page,
the next
book.

and worse,
they don't even get the old books right.
you are given credit for things you don't
deserve, for insights that aren't
there.

people read themselves into books, altering
what thay need and discarding what they
don't.

good critics are as rare as good
writers.
and whether I get a good review or a
bad one
I take neither
seriously.

I am on the next page.
the next book.


Charles Bukowski

From Betting on the Muse - Poems and Stories
Black Sparrow Press, 1996.
Posted over on Swipnet