Auguries of Innocence

New York: Ecco, 2005 First edition, uncorrected proof. Signed by Smith on title page. Publisher's gray wrappers, lettered in white, black, and red, with "Uncorrected Proof" to top left of front wrapper, and sticker with publisher's publicist Clare McMahon's contact information to front wrapper. Fine book, with just a few spots of rubbing to spine. With promotional letter from McMahon laid in. Overall, excellent copy. Patti Smith's first poetry collection in more than ten years, Auguries of Innocence contains poems including "The Lovecrafter," "Sleep of the Dodo," "The Long Road," "Birds of Iraq," "The Geometry Blinked Ruin Unimaginable," and "Mummer Love." "Birds of Iraq" is a particularly interesting poem, weaving the United States' bombing of Baghdad with biographical details of Virginia Woolf. The book's title comes from William Blake's same-titled poem, and Smith includes a couplet from Blake's poem as an epigraph: "A skylark wounded in the wing, / A cherubim does cease to sing." "[Patti Smith's] influences are eclectic and striking: Blake, Rimbaud, Picasso, Arbus, and Johnny Appleseed. Smith is an American original; her poems are oracles for our times." . Signed by Author. First Edition. Hard Cover. Fine/Dust Jacket Included. Galley/Proof.