Smith is well attuned to the otherworldly dimension of dreams and cosmic visions. In this intimate and vaulting collection, she ushers us into the kingdom of childhood. Smith looks to family history for sources of her artistic impulses and portrays herself in adulthood as a roaming mystic, journal in hand, heart and mind open. Exultations of concentrated beauty and mystery ignite Smith's soulful poems about the making of an artist.One thing I've always admired about Patti Smith is her refusal to be characterized. Such a sensibility - fluid, visionary, risky - marks the eleven pieces in Woolgathering, a collection of impressionistic prose poems that dances at the edge of memoir before opting for something harder to pin down.Half beautiful language and metaphors, half raw emotion, this book (which includes a handful of personal photos) will inspire and influence a new generation of logophiles as they read and reread this absorbing, meditative work.Smith pares down her prose to a state of vivid impressionism, so enigmatic that even ordinary acts - preparing mint tea, nodding off while sewing - take on spiritual weight.

The passages evoking her childhood reverberate with serene joy.Capturing moments of her adult life, Smith pares down her prose to a state of vivid impressionism, so enigmatic that even ordinary acts take on spiritual weight.