A turn for the verse

In 1971, Bob Dylan was instantly slammed by critics for his book of verse called “Tarantula.” Dylan’s editors offered no greater support: In an unsigned introduction they wrote they “weren’t quite sure what to make of the book -- except money.” Over the years, many musicians -- from Patti Smith to Jewel -- have put away their guitars and picked up their pens at a grab for literary greatness.

The latest songwriter to join the fray is Billy Corgan, founder and leader of the Smashing Pumpkins, a band that came of age during the grunge era and evolved quickly into a model of the now mainstreamed alternative music scene. Corgan’s book “Blinking With Fists” represents his first foray into the printed word -- works presented with a glint of anointed legitimacy by a cornerstone of literary publishing, Faber and Faber. Is Corgan prepared for the Dylan treatment?

Your fame, of course, will suggest to critics that a book of poems is a mere vanity project.

I thought about publishing it anonymously -- maybe with some small press -- and not making it about me. But I eventually came to the conclusion that I am me, I can’t not be me or who I am or what I’ve done. I know I’ll take flak for this -- a rock star writing poetry. I’m not supposed to be able to do this. But it’s better to do it as me than try to pretend or to wear a mask.

You began writing poetry as the Smashing Pumpkins was starting to break up four or five years ago, and so many of these poems, not just ones about your mother, seem to reek of loss. I can think of “the others,” which begins, “If the dream is gone / Good!, then let it die.”

You’re definitely seeing something there. I think “Adore” [the band’s final album] is where I was starting to grasp a more complex lyrical set of themes. But a lot of what I had to say couldn’t be contained in a song. Songs are always subservient to the beat and rhythm, the phonetic sound of rhyming. Poetry is any way you want to take. And as I went deeper into it, the poetry broke away from the rhythms of sound.

Do you find it hard to let the words on the page express what you have to say, without the expressiveness of your vocal tones, or the underlining and embellishing of drums and guitar?

It’s hard that all of that energy has to come off the page. I found myself leaning on what I would normally write [for music], but when I went back I would see that it didn’t explain it on its own. In songs, the melody can drive it, but not in poetry.

Was poetry a new form to you -- even as a reader -- when you began writing the poems in this book?

I underestimated poetry. If you had asked me, is it better read a poem or listen to a song, I’d say a song every time. Poetry always struck me as a very ineffective art form. But then I’ve never been into classical music either. See, for my generation we had feminists, gay men, lesbians, every disenfranchised group, everyone shouting their laundry list of grievances, and to me that was what poetry was. Until I really wrote poetry, got inside it, I thought it was not powerful -- and now I think it’s extremely powerful. I wouldn’t be surprised if years from now people are reading the poems when the songs are long gone.

You’re also under contract to write a novel. How is prose treating you?

I’ve written an outline. I’m also thinking about doing a life-story book.

Like a memoir?

More like a smear. I want to smear my life all over the page.

You just finished your last track on your first solo album. Did your writing affect that process?

When I started writing the lyrics with this album -- I waited until it was time to record the vocals as an exercise in pressure -- the new poetry guy in my brain said that’s not good enough. But the problem with rock songs is you end up singing a lot of dumb words because they rhyme. The truth be told, I’m frustrated with rock lyrics now that I’ve done poetry.

Are there any current aspects of rock that give you hope and inspiration?

I feel like 15-year-olds are coming back around to substance. But it does take the Kurt Cobains of the world to make people snap to attention. My dream is a boy or a girl like that tries it from their bedroom and says no to the corporate stuff, turns against all the money and everything that represents success. That would be truly revolutionary. I’m part of the corporate rock structure, so it’s not that I want to see it destroyed. I just want to see it loosened up.

After a book of poetry and a solo album, how do you imagine what comes next?

Personal happiness, self-fulfillment and better abs: enlightenment and a six-pack.