Reality Check: Just Kids by Patti Smith

Ok, so I have to say this straight out. However bad I was at haiku or limerick, I am truly appalling at rhyming couplets. But as you know all too well by now, I never let my dignity get in the way of fulfilling a promise, so here is the first instalment of my December reading/poetry challenge. Thankfully, I started with a book that I truly loved. Not knowing all that much about Patti Smith or Robert Mapplethorpe, but growing up in awe of the New York cultural scene of the 60's and 70's, I was mesmerised to read about it straight from the horse's mouth (sorry, pathetic pun...). So here you have it, my terrible rhyming couplet review of Patti Smith's wonderful Just Kids.

Many a hymn has been sung to New York
But none of its Lower East Saint Mapplethorpe
From squats to the halls of the Chelsea Hotel
Of great falls and rises the high priestess tells
A tale sometimes tender and other times sordid
Vale to Puck, once rent boy now applauded!