Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Steve Lake

Critical Essay by Steve Lake

You'll find Patti Smith, poetess, in the Gotham Book Mart, New York's hippest bookstore, where her slim volumes of manic poetry nestle snugly between volumes of Burroughs, Ginsberg, Goray and Rimbaud. Patti Smith enjoys a literary reputation. Jerzy Kosinki is one of her fans.

I don't feel particularly qualified to assess her poetry. I've browsed through it and wasn't conscious of being in the presence of greatness, but I'm no Harvard poetry professor, that's for sure.

Better, perhaps, that we leave posterity to hassle over Patti's prosody. But Patti Smith, rock singer, is a subject closer to home….

Her interviews liberally compare her to Jim Morrison, William Burroughs, Iggy Stooge, Verlaine (not the Television guitarist, the other one) and Rimbaud who, she has claimed in moments of monumental banality, "woulda made a great lead guitarist." Of course, the New York press laps all this up and proclaims her the "biggest...
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