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Babel (book)

poetry book by Patti Smith

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 15, 2026
Entity authorityQ4034756 ↗
Source-derived summary

Babel is a book by Patti Smith, published in 1978, and contains Smith's poems along with her prose, lyrics, pictures and drawings.

Contents

Radio Ethiopia

"Notice"

"Italy"

"The Tapper Extracts"

"Grant"

"Street of the Guides"

"Rimbaud Dead"

"Sohl"

"Neo Boy"

"Dog Dream"

"Mirza"

"The Stream"

"The Dream of Rimbaud"

"Doctor Love"

Alien to Alien

"Munich"

"High on Rebellion"

"Ain't It Strange"

"Egypt"

"Rape"

"Space Monkey"

"Suite"

Sister Morphine

"Notice 2"

"Judith"

"Georgia O'Keeffe"

"A Fire of Unknown Origin"

"Edie Sedgewick"

"Judith Revisited"

"Marianne Faithfull"

"Sister Morphine"

Pipe Dreams

"Bread"

"Sterling Forest"

"Grass"

"Vandal"

"The Amazing Tale of Skunkdog"

"Konya the Shepherd"

"Sandayu the Separate"

"Conteé"

"Saba the Bird"

"Thermos"

"Enculé"

Mohammedia

"The Sheep Lady from Algiers"

"Penicillin"

"Robert Bresson"

"Carnival!

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Babel (book)” as poetry book by Patti Smith. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Babel, book and poetry.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1978—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1978. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Babel, book and poetry providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Babel (book)”, the useful work is to connect “poetry book by Patti Smith” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4034756. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1978.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Babel (book)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Babel (book) primary sources, Babel (book) archive and Babel research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Babel (book)”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Babel (book)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.