poetry analysis – Anton Martin Smith Writer

“Open Letter: Hey poet – Don’t steal Buk’s stellar 30 year Work Record”

May 11, 2026May 11, 2026Posted in UncategorizedTagged Antipodean Poet, Books, Buk, Bukowski, Copycat-ism, literary commentary, Literary Confrontations, Open Letter, poem, Poems, Poet Vs Poet, Poetry, poetry analysis, writingLeave a comment

by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites.com or Martinantonsmith@gmail.com

I called out a fellow Buk fan & I was ‘blocked’.

This fellow Antipodean Poet also loves Buk.

Like me he mentions him all the time.

Sidebar:You can love Bukowski AND not like some of his bad drunken behavior.

That’s cool.

I applaud him for recognizing Buk’s literary genius.

BUT he ruins it all by doing this:

He tells his audience that he’s essentially ‘just like Buk’.

BUT

He has a patchy at best work record.

More holes in his CV than swiss cheese.

His dole check to work week ratio cannot have more than two-fifths MAX.

YET

He implies to his audience that he’s been working “thirty years straight in shit jobs just like Buk”.

Look, my Antipodean-warmer-climes-fellow-GenX-Pal,

Poetry is supposed to be about Truth.

Poets are supposed to be Truthful above all else.

None of this ‘Stolen Work Record Valor’ OK?

Oh did I mention?

In between the holes he was a ‘Marketing Man’.

Marketing Men love to lie to get results.

So what I would say to you oh ‘Fake Antipodean Buk’ is this:

If your were a true Poet,

Bernaysian Chicanery wouldn’t rule your tongue.

The Truth would.

Deep down I think you know this,

And are wondering about the sword of Damocles.

Or should I saw ‘The sword of Buk’?

Huh?

Riddle me that oh you Poetic antipodean hybrid of Bernays & Goebels.

But I am a reasonable man,

I am willing to throw you this crumb:

Perhaps I’ve got it wrong,

For there has always been scammy poets.

Who don’t give a rats about the Truth.

So perhaps you are a ‘poet’.

With a ‘small p’.

I implore you to capitalize your P forthwith – by admitting you were lazy with real world jobs.

And that’s why you hardly worked at all.

After all that is no sin to admit – in fact that’s honorable.

A ‘Big P Poet’ would definitely do this.

They might even wear it as a ‘badge of honor”.

But you lie about it, and suggest you grind-worked every day from age twenty to fifty –

‘Just like Buk did’.

That’s called intellectual dishonesty my friend.

And no Cap P Poet ever does this treasonous act.

And I’m sure BUK would agree.

He would say this:

“Be the hero in and of your own story YES – but don’t dare write about someone else pal”.

“Disneyfication” (A Poem)

February 11, 2026February 12, 2026Posted in UncategorizedTagged Poetry, poetry analysis, Bukowski, San Padro, Disneyfication, Truth & PoetryLeave a comment

by Anton martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com

And to the lights-on-but-no-one’s-home-folk that recoil in horror about a poem about BO?

Or a poem about the life being drained away from the eyes of the the human cubicle dweller?

Can’t you see that you rose-tinted-glasses view of the world isn’t helping anyone, let alone yourself?

The San Padro Poet was right when he talked about the ills of ‘Disneyfication’

There’s dirt, grunge, & bad smells & much worse in this world,

So let it be described in all it’s uncomfortable rancid true colors.

Though let’s be frank – the leafy greens types in aisle 7 will never catch on.

But perhaps a few will walk by the ‘gutter poetry aisle’ one day,

And look squarely at one of our poems,

Lift up their rose tinted glasses and read the first line or two,

And after the third line upon raising a single eyebrow up high,

Instead of the their usual loudly dismissive herumpf followed by clomping getaway feet –

There is just a barely audible ‘pfft’ followed by gentle mouse steps to the vacuum-packed salmon section.

Mickey Mouse will slowly start erasing himself from his big stupid ears to his oversize shoes,

Leaving only a dancing hand in a white glove & a pencil behind (in true cartoon style).

Those Streaky Starving Satellites – a short Poem

April 4, 2021April 18, 2021Posted in UncategorizedTagged dunedin, Poems, poetry analysis, sky, wellingtonLeave a comment

Welcome To The Baby Wants its Bottle Poetry Inc. Podcast, a creative project by Martin Anton Smith, a New Zealand Based creative. In this episode, I read a Poem That I have literally just written over the past hour. This was inspired due to the weather – namely some wild winds blowing in Central Otago New Zealand, at the moment. The wind is the most fierce I have seen for at least a couple of years, the sky is blue, and there is much too and froing of leaves and various small detritus. Luckily it is not yet so bad, and my cat “Squeaky” isn’t yet flying through the wind yet. In this poem, for some reason, I thought of thin people being buffered about, while larger people existing in more relaxing circumstances. A bit like a small boat vs a large boat on choppy water. I wrote a light hearted piece about this wind buffering matter. I think this poem would go over well at a poetry reading, whereby people are sufficiently lubricated – I think I will try to make this happen, most likely in Dunedin, which is only 2 hours away by horseless carriage. Although in theory the Poem is best made for reading in windy cities like Wellington or Freemantle, Australia. I definitely do not recommend this poem if you are a sailor, waiting impatiently in the doldrums, for more wind to catch your sail, as it will make you even more cranky than you already are. And without further ado, let me begin the poem!.

“Those Streaky Starving Satellites” by Martin Anton Smith 2021

While the wild storm is a brewin,

The thin become nervous and fidgety,

while the large are conversely, quite relaxed.

For the large are naturally blessed with ballast,

While the thin have burnt theirs off long, long ago.

At its logical worst, the garilous gale brings forth,

a scattered world of thin people, flying through the sky.

The direction of which, is determined by what meteorologists call “the Jet stream”.

They circumnavigate the earth, like high flying tumbleweeds,

or as low flying streakily shaped satellites would.

Of course the Large people, safely endowed with gods ballast,

have a whale of a time while watching skywards, from below.

They festively raise a glass to their gallery of large friends gathered,

and speak freely with witty rejoinder, and they dare to quip:

“Well,,,.. that’s what you get, for starving yourself”.

End of Poem.

Postscript: Thankyou for your patience, I hope you enjoyed “Those Streaky Starving Satellites”. To add a closing remarks, I’d just like to now add, that in a windier world, perhaps brought on by rampart climate change, middle age spread or general extra girth, isn’t such a bad thing after all, it allows you to have ballast and sturdiness to combat the slings and arrows of existence in the high winds of life. Of course, when the wind dies down and heat piles on, the thinner people will be laughing at the large, while they sweat uncomfortably, and the thin radiate the heat away like a good engine cowling would. Please do not take this poem too seriously, it is simply a commentary on the physics of larger and smaller bodies facing environmental stresses -and those bodies happen to be living breathing humans, of all shapes and sizes, and that is a thing of beauty, don’t you agree?

Thankyou for listening to the baby wants its bottle poetry Inc. podcast, a creative project brought to you by Martin Anton Smith a New Zealand based creative. The baby wants its bottle podcast is available via Spotify, apple podcasts and many other platforms.