Santa Barbara. Black Sparrow Press. 1978. First Edition. Issue no. 72. Softcover, staple-bound chapbook w. art paper cover. Book Condition: Fine. 10pp.

"I like to prowl ordinary places 
the people explain themselves to me
and I to them [...]

that's lighting enough

the generals and doctors may kill us
but we have
won."

For the final issue of Sparrow, September 1978, Issue number 72, Black Sparrow Press released this handsome (and beautifully-preserved), staple-bound chapbook of Charles Bukowski’s poetry. “We’ll Take Them” comprises 12 poems, the last of which is so eponymously named. This rather slim volume manages nonetheless to build its own subtle crescendo, and is a testament to the writer’s mastery for sustaining his offhand, unsettlingly "drole," informed, and tender tone as his poems filter the world, translating poetry from his firsthand confrontations with human violence, pleasure, and play. We encounter lobsters, dentists, and D.H. Lawrence on the way, through the daily and worldly troubles (wars, cities, people) that, somehow, leave you with the words for something braver and more resilient than you knew you could be before.