IT IS BETTER TO WRITE…
SMITH, Patti Auguries of Innocence. New York: HarperCollins.2005.
8vo. Original publisher's white cloth with gilt lettering to spine; bold authors signature to title page; grey pictorial dust jacket; pp. [xii], 61, [7]; fine.
First edition, signed by Patti Smith
In the summer of 2005, Patti Smith curated the Meltdown Festival at the Royal Festival Hall in London, during which she performed her first album Horses in full for the first time. The live performance was later released under Horses, Horses.
Auguries of Innocence followed this success; the first book from Patti Smith in over a decade. Known for her celebration of epic literary and artistic profiles, such as Blake and Rimbaud to name but a few, (“Mummer Love,” is a prose poem that brings to life her muse Arthur Rimbaud), the author of Auguries of Innocence is described in the blurb as a "poet and performer who has inscribed her vision of our world in powerful anthems, ballads, and lyrics".
As she writes of the beautiful weight and universal resonance of poetry; “it is better to write / then die / a thousand prayers".
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