Original Flyer for Wednesday April 12th Reading at St. Mark's Poetry Project by Smith, Patti; Jim Carroll - 1972

[New York]: [The Poetry Project], 1972. Very good.. Original flyer designed by Patti Smith for an early and infamous reading ("poetry dreams + dirty stories") by her and Jim Carroll at the St. Mark's Poetry Project. Scheduled to take place on April 12, 1972 at the St. Marks Church in the Bowery where Smith gave her very first reading (with Gerard Malanga) only the previous year, Carroll was a no-show for the performance. Unexpectedly in jail on drug charges, Carroll was for a time banned from readings at the Poetry Project (and he would leave NYC for Bolinas the following year in an attempt to stay clean). In an interview with Victor Bockris shortly after this event, Smith said of Carroll: "I think he's got all the characteristics of a great poet. He was St. Mark's' chance to have something real among them. And they blackballed him because he fucked up. I mean, he didn't come to his poetry reading. He was in jail. Good for him. 'Oh, well, we can't ask him to do poetry readings anymore.' That's ridiculous."

Though unattributed, the flyer is clearly lettered by Smith in her hand and includes three of her distinctive drawings: a caricature of Jim Carroll dunking a basketball (an allusion to Carroll's BASKETBALL DIARIES, which began appearing in 1968, but wasn't published in book form until a decade later), one called "illisut [sic] acts" (showing two pig-like creatures engaged in some form of intercourse), and the self-evidently titled "airplanes rabbits dogs."

Smith and Carroll were close since Smith's earliest years in NYC. For a time the two were a couple, and at one point Carroll even lived with Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe in their loft. Their careers very much ran parallel to each other, crossing back and forth between literary and musical endeavors (indeed, it was Smith who encouraged Carroll to form a rock band) and the two remained friends until Carroll's death in 2009.

Although not noted, this flyer is from the archive of Sandy Pearlman, who founded, produced and managed Blue Oyster Cult, produced The Clash's second album, and served as one of the original editors and music critics at Crawdaddy!. While we've twice handled the flyer from Smith's debut reading the previous year, we've never handled this one - and have only ever encountered it once before.

A rare document from the careers of two key figures from both the downtown literary and punk scenes. 11'' x 8.5''. Original flyer printed recto only. Offset duplicated. A couple of old horizontal creases, and a few of small faint areas of toning or discoloration.