Patti Smith

Early Work

"[Early Work] establishes Smith as a visionary belletrist who believed in rock as a spiritual outlet and haven for black sheep—an outpost on a continuum connecting such heroes as poets Arthur Rimbaud and Charles Baudelaire, Amelia Earhart, Harry Houdini and film director Pier Paolo Pasolini to a sexy, androgynous future." —Evelyn McDonnell, Rolling Stone

"A poet of distinction." —John Rockwell, New York Times

Collected here are selections from Patti Smith's writings over the decade in which she made a lasting impact on America's underground literary and rock scene. Smith's work evokes the experimentation and the desire to break boundaries of those pre-punk days. Over one-quarter of the works selected are unpublished pieces from journals, performances, and Smith's personal papers. Heavily illustrated with photographs by Judy Linn, Robert Mapplethorpe, Edward Maxey, and others, Early Work brings together all sides of Patti Smith, from the thoughtful intellectual to the explosive performer.

"[Early Work] burns . . . with the galvanizing sense of faith and transcendence that made [Smith] the last of the great rock poets." —Entertainment Weekly