Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #429688 in Books
• Published on: 2006-03-21
• Released on: 2006-03-21
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 96 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780571211708
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
The frontman and lyricist for the Smashing Pumpkins—whose alternative-rock hits soared through millions of radios in the mid-1990s—enters the arena of the written word with this passionate, if rarely subtle, debut. Corgan has also worked in Chicago-area theater and in spoken-word performance, and his free verse often shows the directness associated with those venues, as well as the oddities fans of his lyrics will know: "The way/ You look/ At me/ Makes me/ Lonely/ Grinding tears/ Behind a mask/ Made of/ Abalone," begins "The Sun of Flowers." Hope, dreams and erotic excitement are frequent themes, while nautical or seaside settings predominate: "the most eternal sun-drenched kiss," Corgan exclaims, "is locked in my mind as something I won’t miss/ Or even try to remember." Other work may resonate with fans, yet strike even them as vague, even amateurish: "Whatever was needed will find its way home/ Delivered with riches and prayers full of soul." The title, with its intimations of a frustrated child, may be the best thing about this collection, and its most appropriate introduction.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

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Customer Reviews

Don't blink...
It's hard to listen to the Smashing Pumpkins, and not be struck by former frontman Billy Corgan's unique writing -- often his songs sounded like poetry set to music. Now he really is a poet. "Blinking With Fists," his first book of poetry, is a stunning, wrenching look at Corgan's ever-expanding talents.

Corgan was known for plumbing the depths of his own feelings in his songs. Now he does the same for his poetry. His poems are gritty and jagged, but they shine through as examinations of his emotions: his loves, losses, loneliness, past regrets, and sometimes his hopes. He makes you feel thoughtful, isolated, on a dark street where dogs are barking, and the world seems to be winding down.

Billy Corgan rose to prominence during the grunge era of Nirvana in the early nineties, as frontman/writer/vocalist of the Smashing Pumpkins. Later, he was the frontman of the sadly short-lived Zwan. But with "Blinking With Fists," (and the novel Corgan is reportedly working on), he shows that he's not just a musician. He gets to take the evocative, eerie writing that he did in the Smashing Pumpkins and Zwan, and turn that writing into something purer.

What's even better, free-form poetry allows Corgan to be less restricted in his writing. In "Blinking," he doesn't have to form his poetry so that it will fit with music. But it still is very lyrical and beautiful, full of strange images and melancholy atmosphere. It takes a little while to really sink in -- but boy, is it worth it when it does.

Billy Corgan has apparently left his band days behind him. But his debut publication, "Blinking With Fists," is a breathtaking collection of poetry that bodes well for his solo career. Highly recommended.

Entertaining read, but he's no T S Eliot
Let me start this by saying I have been a huge fan of Corgan's work since I fell in love with the Smashing Pumpkins when I was in the sixth grade (around 1995). I absolutely love the man to bits, but that does not stop me from looking at his work with a somewhat critical eye.

The poetry in this book is best described as hit-or-miss. A few of them are quite good. Corgan has always had a magnificent way with imagery and quite often you can see, hear and feel these poems as easily as you can read them. He takes you along with him in his poetry as he has always taken you with him in his music.

However-- Some of them are not so good. Some of them are plagued with odd phrases that seem out of place, a lack of any detectable structure (and thus sound more like prose than poetry), pretentious writing that makes little sense even after several re-readings, and some lines are just downright silly. Occasionally I wonder if he was just having a bit of fun with a thesaurus. At any rate, I do believe he could have benefitted greatly from a better editor.

As always, I look forward to new work from Billy Corgan, but Blinking With Fists is not ever going to be remembered as his crowning achievement.

How Shall I Say This

It's painful to say anything less than glowing things about this book, since I'm a major fan of the music Corgan and the other members of Smashing Pumpkins released, but I always also knew that when you got right down to it, much of what sounded so great as part of a song, made little real sense when read devoid of music. (For instance, "1979" one of the finest songs of the 90's, what do those words truly mean if you analyze them?) That's most of the problem here. I kept thinking how set to music much of Corgan's free verse would have taken wing, but on its own...it was lacking: even empty. There are some good pieces here in Blinking with Fists but I hope Billy concentrates more on music in the future, since that's where his talent--genius I'll go so far as to say--really lies. Sorry, Billy.