Description

Former Smashing Pumpkins front man Billy Corgan follows in the footsteps of such rockers-turned-poets as Lou Reed, Lee Ranaldo, and Jewel with BLINKING WITH FISTS, his first collection of verses. Corgan’s band was in the vanguard of early-1990s alternative rock with its mix of angst-ridden lyrics set against a grinding, propulsive, guitar-driven rock backdrop. Though stripped of the need to rock, his poetry tends to be gentler and more reflective, if no less intensely felt. He grapples with subjects like the loss of love, the impersonality of cities, and the aching beauty of life in a series of intensely personal poems that point to the sensitive artist beneath the rocker’s exterior. Corgan’s years as a lyricist have obviously given him the adroit capacity to convey emotion through imagery, a skill he uses with great dexterity throughout the entirety of BLINKING WITH FISTS.