Blinking with Fists

Rating:
Summary: I Love This Book
Review: i got it and i love it not much more to say .. oh i think you should buy it if you like anything billy corgan. it rox and its awsome

Rating:
Summary: As we should have expected
Review: Billy Corgan as rock musician and songwriter: excellent. Billy Corgan as poet: ummm..... I know poetry more than I know rock n' roll, and I love them both. This just isn't good stuff.

What really saddens me about the publication of this book is that it probably didn't take Billy much time at all to find a willing publisher. He probably didn't even have to show them any work. They just saw his name, and knew that there would be at least 500,000 Pumpkins and Zwan fans willing to buy the book. Meanwhile, there are quite a few incredible poets out there who truly have to struggle to get their work published. And the audience for such poetry is vibrant, but sadly miniscule, and too small to compete with the louder mutterings of the popular culture.

Want some real poets to read? BH Fairchild, Robert Wrigley, the late Michael Donaghy. Those are some starters. Go read some of those guys, then come back to Corgan. Then keep in mind that each of these truly great poets had to struggle a lot harder than Mr. Corgan to get their work into print. And you don't see any of them trying to form a rock band in the same way Mr. Rocker has deemed himself Mr. Poet.



Rating:
Summary: Simple. Bright. Comfortable read.
Review: I am a Pumpkin fan. The works here are easy to read but worth the journey. Simple, but not simplistic. Good book for the road, or the airplane, or train. Companion book you can read over and again. Also recommend "Cars and People: Pissing at 60 Miles an Hour" and "Kamikzae Gods and Suicide Mules"

Rating:
Summary: What Happened?
Review: I have been a big Billy/Smashing Pumpkins fan for years. I always considered him a lyrical genius.
When I received this book, I read through most of it and then put it on my shelf where it has remained.
I am extremely disappointed in this book. What happened to his brilliance and the profound words? What happened to evoking emotion in the reader(listener)?
I recommend you check this book out at the library before purchasing it. I love Billy but this book is not good.

Rating:
Summary: Well Done
Review: I have been a fan of the band Smashing Pumpkins and Billy Corgan himself for a while. The fact the he has written a poetry book is quite ironic to me because I always felt his song were poetry themselves. I read the book from page 1 to the end and I got to say Mr. Corgan always keeps me comming back for more. he expresses his idea's extravagantly and I felt he was sharring his deepest darkest fealing's to his most insightful thought's as he did in his music. Mr. Corgan inspired me to be a musician and his book Blinking with Fist pushes me even further. Even though his musical career is comming to an end I feel this book and his music will help us remember him for who he was... a poet.

Rating:
Summary: Pathetic
Review: I think Smashing Pumpkins is a good band, although I admit I was never relly 'into' them, save for the occasional song on the radio. Here we have an example of a guy cashing in on his brand name, and 'poof' he's a writer. These are not poems but diarreah of the mouth, just formless pap- banal, generic, unskilled rants. Corgan clearly has talent as a musician, and I thought the whole reason they broke up is because they didn't want to become echoes of themselves. So instead Corgan must write bad poems? OY, can't he just enjoy his wealth and success and sip his tea by the mountians like every retired rock star? No, he must still creep into the world by publishing his novice writing. Please, Billy. Have a little self respect. Sheesh.

Rating:
Summary: sweet praise
Review: I would just like to say that i love this book. Given that he is also a singer and great lyricist, whom i love, i still went through the book first and upon finding poems that i liked just had to buy it or else. I do not believe he is in any way copping off his fame; he had to have once and certainly always been a poet if indeed he wrote for both his bands. The need to sing was greater than publishing his poetry, i think. I only wish there were more. and forget T.S. Eliot. :)

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining read, but he's no T S Eliot
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting, but not great.
Review: Like most others, Corgan is the one who made me start writing songs, he's a musical God to me. But, I read this book twice today and there are oly 3-4 poems worth telling people about. They are nowhere near the poetry he wrote for the album Siamese Dream, read some of those lyrics and you'll see what great poetry is all about. Get back to your roots, Billy.

I also had this book autographed, so that's another reason to keep it safe. If this book would've come from an everyday Joe off the street, people would laugh at it. Stick to playing and writing music. Thanks for the great tunes, Billy !
Here is poetry, the song Mayonaise:

Fool enough to almost be it
Cool enough to not quite see it
Doomed
Pick you pockets full of sorrow
And run away with me tomorrow
June

We'll try and ease the pain
But somehow we'll feel the same
Well no one knows
Where our secrets go

I send a heart to all my dearies
When your life is so so dreary
Dream
I'm rummored to the straight and narrow
While the harlots of my perils
Scream

And I fail
But when I can, I will
Try to understand
That when I can, I will

Mother weep the years I'm missing
All our time can't be given
Back
Shut my mouth and strike the demons
That cursed you and your reasons
Out of hand and out of season
Out of love and out of feeling so
Bad

When I can, I will
Words defy the plans
When I can, I will

Fool enough to almost be it
And fool enough to not quite see it
And old enough to always feel this
Always old, I'll always feel this

No more promise no more sorrow
No longer will I follow
Can anybody hear me
I just want to be me
When I can, I will
Try to understand
That when I can, I will

Rating:
Summary: Five stars, half empty, half full
Review: We, as consumers, critics and creators can easily be blinded by the basic subjective lables of "good" and "bad" However, we must remember that each individual's response to a work of art is unique; no two people will have the same experiences. If you are considering buying "Blinking with Fists" don't hesitate. Even if you dislike the book or never read it more than once it will be worth it because you will have experienced SOMETHING. That is the point of art; to express and experience.