“Ryan Adams, one of America’s most consistently interesting singer/songwriters, has written a passionate, arresting, and entertaining book of verse. Fans are going to love it, and newcomers will be pleased and startled by his intensity and originality. The images are vivid and the voice is honest and powerful.” —Stephen King, author of Duma Key
“Ryan Adams writes with equal parts precision and recklessness; the blood he draws from the text is easily as unnerving as its unapologetic tenderness. He is proof that poetry will find its writer.” —Mary-Louise Parker, actress
“Infinity Blues is Ryan Adams at his personal, unforgettable best. Strong and beautiful and funny and pure. Like all his work, it’s soul poetry of the highest order.” —Cameron Crowe, filmmaker
“This is much better than reading a friend’s journal. It’s more like watching somebody you love in the bathtub talking to himself. You’re like, wow, he’s even good at taking a bath. After reading Infinity Blues (which I think is a great title), I give Ryan Adams the best compliment I ever got—and the only reason for reading anyone’s poetry. Ryan, I really like your mind.” —Eileen Myles, author of Cool for You
Ryan Adams may be known primarily for acclaimed albums such as Cardinology, Heartbreaker, Gold (which includes the popular hit songs “When the Stars Go Blue” and “New York, New York”), Love Is Hell, Cold Roses, Jacksonville City Nights, and Easy Tiger, but the world renowned singer/songwriter has always been a poet and fiction writer at heart. With the release of Infinity Blues, his nonmusical writing is for the first time ever unveiled in book form. Mr. Adams’s work rings of an emotional authenticity that provides perhaps an even deeper insight into the man than is revealed through the songs that have resonated with his hundreds of thousands of fans the world over.
RYAN ADAMS is usually performing in some city on the globe at any given moment with his longtime band the Cardinals. Adams is known for his prolific nature, which in the last ten years has produced various international hit albums. Adams has also produced Willie Nelson’s Songbird album and contributed to records by Toots and the Maytals, Beth Orton, the Wallflowers, Counting Crows, and Cowboy Junkies; additionally, he has appeared on CMT’s Crossroads with Elton John. He was a longtime Manhattan resident before relocating to France in 2009, and he listens to A LOT of heavy metal.
David Ryan Adams is an American alt-country/rock singer-songwriter. Raised by his mother and grandmother, Adams dropped out of school at age 16 and performed with several local bands before moving to Raleigh and forming the band Whiskeytown. Three albums and five years later, Adams went solo, releasing Heartbreaker in 2000. A longtime resident of New York City, Adams is probably best known for his song "New York, New York", which appeared on his 2001 release Gold. He has since released four more solo albums and three albums and one EP with backing band The Cardinals. His latest release, the EP Follow The Lights, was released on October 23, 2007.
Adams has also produced albums by Jesse Malin and Willie Nelson and contributed to the albums of artists, including Toots and the Maytals, Beth Orton, The Wallflowers, Jesse Brand, Minnie Driver, Counting Crows, America and Cowboy Junkies. He also appeared on CMT's Crossroads with Elton John.
I'm on page 63. Is it too soon to say I'm disappointed?
"...oh god blah, and yuck and YOU know and she knows and you will never cry for a time before a sound tells you why and how for a thought hits under your heels and smashes to the ground underneath the wheels of my rig full of cock and hope and eventual betrayal and you know and she knows and I did not but she is full of fear which makes me hot...."
"...Elf Mountain, i rely on you and a soft gang of unicorns plus the medicine to help me find that strange thing-- that strange valley sleep i find it so hard to imagine or reach ...Elf Mountain, do you have a favorite set of marbles in your jar of brains of things to help you do 'that' but something opposite of me when i am awake like this?"
"write a line cross it out nothing i say is ever good enough anyway my stomach is turning bloody gray full of rust riddled with cliche and gay as fuck"
This does nothing for me. Is it supposed to do something for me just because I'm a fan of his music? It doesn't. "Riddled with cliche and gay as fuck" describes it rather dead-on, but even that isn't good poetry (IMO--well, of course it's IMO, it's in my fucking book review).
PAGE 84--I GIVE UP. I am not enjoying it, so FUCK IT.
Ryan Adams has been one of my favourite songwriters for years now, and though I don't read poetry much, I figured that since I loved his lyrics (which are essentially poems), I might like his poetry. I was right, though not in the way I thought. Ryan has a gift with words and playing them off each other, but Infinity Blues also displays his humor, his dark side, his fears - it displays his range.
I took about two months to read all poems, because I've found that poetry isn't actually fast to read. It takes time to swallow it all in. I digested it, and was able to parallel many of his personal issues with what I already know about him: Ryan used to do a lot of drugs, used to drink a lot, and he's someone people write about and pay attention to. He's sober now, but it's obvious that it's a struggle for him not to think of those days and going back to them. He writes about death a lot, and questions his own mortality...
And then there's women and love and sex and relationships and all the good memories, or anger, or sadness these subjects conjure up in Ryan. Mainly sadness, though. And being alone. And his mistakes. In the titular poem, "Infinity Blues," Ryan touches on some of these subjects, and growing old:
i don't address you when you read because it was only one girl i wanted to need who i wanted to write to or for only one set of legs for me to set the seed i am a dirty old fuck on the inside but not i am all kinds of trinkets and Southern things forget spoiled by loneliness and made of forgot
In the poem, he repeats the line, "and i AM going to die," as if he's reassuring himself that the pain he feels will end at some point, at least. There's that.
And for all his prolific writing, Ryan has dealt with many a critic, which he addresses in "Joy" -
When you say a thing that I write too much I dream myself a thousand-plus more book I wrote myself and imagine them in a swinging stack fainting and collapsing onto you as they crush your bones in the name of art
I think Ryan's poetry can only really make sense to those who do know the background of Ryan's own career and struggles - or maybe not. Maybe that's just extra goodness to someone like me, a huge fan of Ryan, and un-used to poetry.
My favourite poems: Anxiety and Hope i think i thought i loved you infinity blues Cease Fire Joy 27 Steps (which is somewhat of a short story...)
" I am a fucking fool you know for thinking this is poetry."
Do you remember that bad "poetry" you wrote in high school and you know how happy you are that no one ever saw it? This collection feels exactly like that. Painful. Wannabe Kerouac hipster nonsense.
I love much of Ryan Adams' music and think he can be a damn genius at times. Perhaps if he becomes as prolific a poet and fiction writer as he is a songwriter more will stick to the wall that is worth keeping or stands out like a "Heartbreaker" or "Love is Hell." This just takes itself way too seriously and the payoff is almost nil.
Here is a bright spot (because of the footnote):
I Refuse
I refuse to edit* I am but a single life I refuse to edit look away if you choose but these bulbs will burn in cycles if forever was a single night
*Editor's Note: This poem was originally 32 pages long.--JT.
It is also apparently the only poem in the book in which the editor was enlisted. Deeply disappointing.
Ryan Adams is Ryan Adams. There really is no other description. Read this interesting collection of prose and poetry and you will know what I mean. A man involved in many projects, Ryan is best known for his work as a musician. If you happen to have love unrequited in your life right now, please listen to 'Heartbreaker' on repeat and you will feel much better. Side note: Ryan's record company was pressuring him to name his first solo album, and while on the phone with the record execs he came up with 'Heartbreaker', not because the album is filled with songs about heartbreak and loss, but because he was looking up at his poster of Mariah Carry on the wall. The one where she is wearing the pink t-shirt with 'Heartbreaker' printed on the bossom. Ryan Adams is Ryan Adams.
I wanted to love this book of poetry…there were moments that he captured perfectly, some sentiment…or a feeling that I thought he sketched disjointed phrases and wove them together to bring to light something quite powerful. But those moments were hard to find…scattered…in the midst of a flow of words that felt sometimes like watching a drowning person randomly flailing and doing nothing to help…which is not an easy feeling to categorize and is not something I want to do. I want to help or in terms of this work…I want to at least feel a sense of the writer’s purpose or viewpoint…or something to take away from the poem…. Many of these poems left me with no sense of the author and nothing really to feel other than confusion. Some of the poems were striking and beautifully captured a feeling of anger, loss, or aching loneliness/sadness. If you love Ryan Adams, you will love this poetry and should definitely read this. If you want to look for the hidden gems…if you enjoy a treasure hunt…then take the time to find the phrases, lines and poems in here that capture something profoundly moving.
I enjoyed this as felt it was a lil window on the mind of Ryan at a time he was at a bad spot in his life. Reading it i wasn tsure it was originally meant to be a commercial item, it was like the out pouring of words strung together, sometime it made sense, sometime it was just an outpouring of words.
Sometime you could get lil movie like scenes running through your head to match what was on the page.
I flet quite sad for Rayn as there was clearly a lot going on in his head and if this helped him to get some of it out then good for him.
This isnt a book for all. thsi is not like his lyrics, its a bit more base level, a bit more feral than that.
I already have the follow up ready to go, maybe not right away...but soon.
"so go outside and watch the stars come up don't get caught up in way that it's designed it isn't for us to analyze it's up there for us to feel like somehow everything that got touched turned to the light."
There are some brilliant gems in this poetry anthology, but quite unfortunately it requires some serious digging...
Compared to Hello Sunshine, this was a bit of a disappointment. Hard to follow and mostly random, unpolished word vomit. An occasional clever/pretty line here and there, and I do love Ryan Adams, so I couldn't just give it one star.
I'm at a bit of a loss for what to do with is one. There's a handful of stellar, beautifully crafted poems in this book. There are a few that lend themselves to being set to music in your head, almost like a pile of discarded, half-written songs. And there are a LOT that could have been phenomenal with another revision or two. Is it worth weeding through the junk to find the gems? That's a Ryan Adams-esque question in and of itself.
I would argue that the most honest poem in the batch is My Watch Hates You, which gave me a lot of insight into just how far down he was and made me look at New York, New York differently as a result. I only know scattered bits of his background, as retold by a friend, so this poem stands out to me as authentic recollections in a moment of sober clarity.
Overall, it's not a great work, but it was enjoyable, if you're willing to skip over the ones that straight-up suck. And in my experience, that's true for all poetry books.
Disjointed, rambling, stream of consciousness, self absorbed and sometimes self loathing poetry of sorts. Wonderful and strange stuff. Like cracking open the egg of Adam's mind and stirring the yoke.
It seems to ME that a message of this sort should be read aloud to only those you love in a bathtub of empathy waters of safety covering in a warm sheen from outside judgmentalism a spilled heart. Whatever.
And even though I just wrote the above, yeah, it reads something like that. And I love it. And I get it.
I feel a little bit like a giddy thirteen year old girl as type this, but I absolutely cannot wait to read this! Besides, now that he's sober and married (sob, sob, sob), this is all I have to sate my Ryan Adams addiction.
Also, I was looking at other reviews of this work, and how dare someone named Cyndi (the phonemic similarity to my own name is torturing me) brag about her signed copy! Oh, you think you're so cool, Cyndi? Well, at least I got to stand next to Neal Casal! So there. Sigh.
Fans of Adams' music will be inspired to read this, and may or may not be disappointed. Adams' music is incredible, and he is a gifted wordsmith. His poetry however, has definite hits and misses. Part teenage stream of consciousness, part serious reflection. His poems wash over you like a forgotten dream, a cloud of bar smoke and everything you wished you could forget about someone who ripped out your heart.
I love Ryan Adams as a songwriter, but his 'poetry' fails to retain any poetic glamour from his songwriting. Much of the content is Bukowski-esque, and if you've read him before, you know that the work can get pretty boring pretty quickly. It reminds me more of a 13-year-old's journal than the work of a wonderful musician.
Not to say it's a complete waste of time though. At least it's not Fifty Shades of Grey.
Not exactly what I was expecting, somewhat hit or miss, but a decent collection. There were a few that I thought were downright bad, but overall it was an enjoyable journey through the mind of one of my favorite artists.
some of my favorites: Spit Hits My Face, c'mon, let's go, Joy, & My Watch Hates You.
Underwhelming poetry. Book droned on and on about nothing, and tried to pack way too much into one book of poems. I'm not afraid of curse words in literature, but I don't think this guy could formulate a poem without using the f-word. Self-loathing and being gruff are the shaky crutches this book stands on. I just didn't care for this book, or see its point.
As a singer/songwriter, Ryan Adams is perfect to me. I will never tire of his emotionally charged rock n' roll. Reading Infinity Blues feels like I am his best friend and he's telling me his innermost secret thoughts. His poetry and prose can make me laugh and cry, and that, in my opinion, is the best kind.
libro di poesie del cantautore ryan adams, non tradotto in italiano e perciò solo in lingua originale. chi lo segue riconoscerà un ragazzo sensibile giovane, ultra prolifico nelle sue cose da dire, nella sua sofferenza, nella dipendenza da droghe, negli amori che non sono mai veri amori e in uno dei pezzi si chiede: è il primo o l'ultimo bacio, quello che realmente conta?
I am a massive fan of DRA's music, but this collection of poetry just doesn't hold up for me. It has some good moments, but overall it's pretty adolescent, lacking the depth and real emotional rawness that make his lyrics good. Disappointing, even though I was eager and ready to love it.
My friend has a copy of INFINITY BLUES, so I read approx 20 poems. Once I gave it a fair chance it became fun and, at times, surprisingly insightful reading.