‘Those who control their passions do so because their passions are weak enough to be controlled’ William Blake

Patti Smith introduces her favourite selection of Blake’s poems, including the complete poems from Songs of Innocence and of Experience.

William Blake is one of Britain’s most fascinating writers, who, as well as being a groundbreaking poet, is also well known as a painter, engraver, radical and mystic. Although Blake was dismissed as an eccentric by his contemporaries, his powerful and richly symbolic poetry has been a fertile source of inspiration to the many writers and artists who have followed in his footsteps.