Actual rating 4,5Why is everything Patti Smith writes so, so wonderful and dreamy?I'm glad I still have a couple of her things to read...She's amazing.

Patti's early years in prose. Some startling images - bat wings crackling in a barn fire. Some wonderful reveries that start in listless cafes and drift into souks selling blood red stones. Stories about her infant sister's sickness, her great-grandmother's imperious non-regard, her dog's mysterious death. Also some commonplaces and generalizations that dilute the poetic intensity, but overall this is a very companionable book. Handsomely designed and interspersed with photos, too.

This is an exquisite book. It's short enough to read in an hour or two and flows between prose and verse. Some excerpts:p16How wide the world is. How high. And the stuff of the mind - charged, poofs and scatters like seed and fluff. For such is the tooth of the lion. That it bares and bursts into wishes.p68The Lord gives us wingsHe gives us a stomachwe can fly or vomitturn ourselves into gloryturn upon the waterdraw a cup of bittersturn ourselves inside outand a sum of uswill flickerjust a bit o...

I’m so obsessed with the way Patti Smith describes things and she is specifically talented with creating a sense of nostalgia. I’m not smart enough to fully appreciate some of the pieces but I loved this.

I imagined a lot of things. That I would shine. That I'd be good. I'd dwell bareheaded on a summit turning a wheel that would turn the earth undetected, amongst the clouds, I would have some influence; be of some avail.Woolgathering ~~ Patti SmithA joyful read. Nothing more be said. Highly recommended.

Beautiful simplicity

Linked ideas, refrains, poetic and elusive, memories, charms, dreams, drifting. Word, thought, poetic prose. I can see myself rereading this and appreciating it more each time,

When conceiving Woolgathering, I wrote in the kitchen at a small card table by the screen door. I could hear the laughter of the children playing. It was in the early nineties and my husband was quite ill. We traveled very little, yet as I wrote, in the solitude of my kitchen, I was able to roam freely the scarcely charted landscape of memory governed by clouds. Now, in the time of the pandemic, the parameters of our travels are set by the virus. The physical laws of our movements are no longe...

I am not looking forward to this. Reviewing has become a compulsion of sorts, and this time it won't be fun. Let me soften the blow for myself with this preface: Patti. Oh, Patti. You are an inspirational, resplendent banshee of a human being, a punchy, lithe little poet, a galvanizing artist, and a generally kick-ass b*tch. For this reason, it is with knuckles in teeth that I make this statement: I thought your book was kinda trite. I didn't want to, really. I hope this isn't a deal-breaker, as...

i couldn't believe it when i realized i haven't read this book even though i have from more than one year now. it is a compendium of shorts stories with the wool gatherers walking through and it all makes of it a delicious journey of self-exploration and auto analysis of the child she used to be -that she still is. as it is been tagged: this is a fairytale. pure beauty. a true gem. thank you patti once again

I'm not a specialist when it comes to poetry. I use a very simplified key to evaluate it for myself - if it moves me, I like it, if it doesn't, I forget about it the moment I finish the last line. The situation with poetic prose is very similar in my case. If I catch myself formulating thoughts (subconsciously) in a way the text of the book was written, if it plays again and again in my brain - I'm enchanted. Unfortunately, this is not the case with the tiny book by Patti Smith. There are a few

eh i mean it was okay. like what she was saying was interesting for the most part but kinda pretentious and passé yano? and i love patti smith as an artist, but will i read her work again? probably not :((

why nobody liked it? it's sweet and strange. just a beautiful book full of childhood memories. damn, i liked it more than Just Kids.

Woolgathering contains some of the most poetic prose I've ever read. It's like a magic carpet ride through Smith's memories & impressions...a Van Gogh painted with words. If you do not have imagination , don't read it! I envy & admire the freedom with which Smith uses language . This read is magic...true poetry ...true art.

This is a small beautiful book, one I would choose to own for frequent reads. Her inclusion of the Hanuman book concept is illustrative of it's predictive talismanic power. I would love to carry it around as a little "prayer" book. There is something in her words that resonates strongly, moves me, and I found the reading of this small volume completely soul quenching and calming. It is an early morning with birdsong and rain threatening which seems the perfect backdrop for a fall into her pages-...

"Time passes and with it certain sensations. Yet once in awhile the magic of the field and all that happened there surfaces."Dreamy and spellbinding. In Woolgathering, Patti Smith called me back to the magical moments of my childhood, when the things I beheld were full of whimsy and wonder. Fleeting imagery with a curious impressionistic quality. While reading, I didn't only imagine her past as she writes of it - I remembered my own as well. I love it when writers, through their own recollection...

This new edition was published in 2011. It just came to my attention when knittingtastic, a UK person working in knitting technical editing, posted book on her Instagram feed. I immediately ordered it. As a knitter and Patti Smith fan, I was intrigued. While this book is mostly poems, it also included essays. My favorite essay was her story of her dog Bambi, her constant companion when she was young. It was sad, though not tragic. The cover "Shepherdess with Her Flock", a painting by Millet, m

Video reviewWoolgathering is Patti's childhood, but unlike her other books it's semi-autobiographical which I think reduces its power. Patti already writes poetically and enthusiastically in other books, but in Woolgathering, the reader easily can lose the sense of direction and actual events that make her books memorable and relatable. The best story is 1957 by far, the story of her dog is so moving it feels like that deserved to be a short poem by itself instead of something buried in this arr...

As you know Patti is my favorite. This little obscure one was beautiful.

I couldn't get into this book. While it was about childhood it lacked wonder somehow. The poetry slipped often into the world of dreams and I wanted to be overcome there by shimmering images, but it never happened. The idea of the Woolgatherers, small people collecting tufts of wool from the brambles in the dead of night, was alluring, but the idea didn't take flight. I think its possible that another person will love this book, but sadly I did not and was a bit disappointed.