Auguries of Innocence - by Patti Smith (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

Auguries of Innocence is the first book of poetry from Patti Smith in more than a decade.

It marks a major accomplishment from a poet and performer who has inscribed her vision of our world in powerful anthems, ballads, and lyrics. In this intimate and searing collection of poems, Smith joins in that great tradition of troubadours, journeymen, wordsmiths, and artists who respond to the world around them in fresh and original language.

Her influences are eclectic and striking: Blake, Rimbaud, Picasso, Arbus, and Johnny Appleseed. Smith is an American original; her poems are oracles for our times.

From the Back Cover

Auguries of Innocence is the first book of poetry from Patti Smith in more than a decade. It marks a major accomplishment from a poet and performer who has inscribed her vision of our world in powerful anthems, ballads, and lyrics. In this intimate and searing collection of poems, Smith joins in that great tradition of troubadours, journeymen, wordsmiths, and artists who respond to the world around them in fresh and original language. Her influences are eclectic and striking: Blake, Rimbaud, Picasso, Arbus, and Johnny Appleseed. Smith is an American original; her poems are oracles for our times.

Review Quotes

"Hauntingly beautiful...Romantic and renegade, Smith moves from anger to empathy, reminding us that there is healing in outcry, solace in language, catharsis in expression. As always, Smith leads us to the sorrowing depths, then dances us back into the light." - Booklist

"The singer-songwriter's first collection since 1979 is both elusive and allusive (shout-outs to Rimbaud and Picasso)." - Entertainment Weekly

"[A] hidden jewel...Among her best." - Library Journal

"The incendiary rock star mellows." - The Oregonian (Portland)

"She was once our savage Rimbaud, but suffering has turned her into our St. John of the Cross, a mystic full of compassion." - Edmund White

"[Smith's writings] have garnered a cult following not unlike that of Charles Bukowski...They convey what can only be called Smith's mystique, and the book as whole effectively transmits the affect and aura, as well as the innocence, that make her a rock star: one believes in her...These poems allow access to a major artist's thoughts and preoccupations." - Publishers Weekly

"Punk deity Smith is famous for blending poetry's raw emotion and lyrical sense into rock's rigorous yowling, and her latest book of verse, Auguries of Innocence, takes its name from a poem by one of her heroes, William Blake." - San Francisco Weekly

"A Rimbaudian troubadour devoted to the visionary tradition, ...Smith has little respect for categories. She is one of the world's most influential rock stars, yet she continues to write, of all things, poetry...Musicians who write poetry don't exactly have a distinguished track record, ...so it is a welcome surprise to discover that Smith's book is distinguished by its good writing...Her willingness to write the way she wants to-out of an ecstatic heart-may come, for some readers, as a welcome antidote to what Dan Chiasson called the 'studied aridities' of so much contemporary verse." - Slate