Image by Timothy Greenfield-SandersShe didn’t have any money when she arrived. So for the first couple months, instead of going to movies or plays or anything else, she just walked around the city. She said, “I didn’t need any entertainment. . . . It was beautiful going to Washington Square or Tompkins Square Park and seeing people gathered to read poetry or sing or play chess. For me, New York meant freedom.”
She worked at Scribner’s bookstore in Manhattan, a job that she adored. They were required to read the New York Times Book Review, and she loved that people there “took book clerks seriously”. At the store she read a lot of French poetry and biographies of poets and painters. Outside the store, she spent time at the St Mark’s Poetry Project, and also wrote articles for Rolling Stone magazine.
She had some friends who’d moved to New York City before her, and she was supposed to stay with them for a while. She showed up at their apartment looking for them. But it turns out that they didn’t live there any more, and instead of finding them she stumbled across a sleeping art student, Robert Mapplethorpe, a man who would go on to become a famous photographer. But at the time, Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe were each just 20 years old, and they became lovers and roommates --- inseparable young cash-strapped companions living out bohemian dreams in New York City. They rented the smallest room at the Hotel Chelsea, so they could reside in a place famous for housing writers and artists like Dylan Thomas, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, and Simone de Beauvoir.
She and Mapplethorpe vowed to support each other’s art. They would stay up on all night together working on their separate projects, and then take cigarette breaks to comment on each other’s work. She said, “We gathered our colored pencils and sheets of paper and drew like wild, feral children into the night, until, exhausted, we fell into bed.”
The two stayed close friends and artistic collaborators even after they ended their romance and Mapplethorpe discovered that he was gay. Their relationship is the subject of Patti Smith’s recent memoir, Just Kids (2010), which won this year’s National Book Award. The book has been described as “beautifully crafted love letter” to Mapplethorpe, who died in 1989.
He had encouraged her to draw, and she spent a lot of time hanging around the campus where he was an art student. Pretty soon she was writing poetry verses in her notebooks in addition to sketching up pencil drawings. She published her first collection of poems, Seventh Heaven, in 1972, when she was just 25.
She gave poetry readings around New York City, and became known for her dramatic delivery, in which she seemed to vacillate between anger and helplessness. One night, a friend played electric guitar on stage as she read poems. She said that they were aiming to “infuse new life into performing poetry---merging poetry with electric guitar, three chords—and to reembrace rock and roll.” To work at this ambitious project she formed a band, The Patti Smith Group. Four years after she released her first book of poems, Patti Smith released her first punk album, Horses (1975). It begins with the lyrics “Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine.” The album was wildly successful, and it’s considered one of the top rock albums of all time. Patti Smith is known as “the godmother of punk”, and in 2007 she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
She’s recorded a dozen albums, including Radio Ethiopia (1976) Easter (1978), Wave (1979), Dream of Life (1988), Peace and Noise (1996), and Gung Ho (2000). Her most recent one is a live double album with Kevin Shields, The Coral Sea (2008).
Her books of poems and drawings include Witt (1973), Ha! Ha! Houdini! (1977), Babel (1978), Woolgathering (1992) Stranger Messenger (2003) and Auguries of Innocence (2005).
She’s the subject of a recent documentary by Steven Sebring, called “Patti Smith: Dream of Life” (2008).
Americans just don't know what being a movie star's all about.
Patti Smith
An artist is somebody who enters into competition with God.
Patti Smith
An artist may have burdens the ordinary citizen doesn't know, but the ordinary citizen has burdens that many artists never even touch.
Patti Smith
Artists are traditionally resistant to labels.
Patti Smith
As far as I'm concerned, being any gender is a drag.
Patti Smith
Besides me wanting to be an artist, I wanted to be a movie star.
Patti Smith
Christianity made us think there's one heaven.
Patti Smith
Everyone thinks of God as a man - you can't help it - Santa Claus was a man, therefore God has to be a man.
Patti Smith
First of all, anybody who has lasted 30 and went through the 60's is really a survivor.
Patti Smith
Horses pretty much broke as a record in England.
Patti Smith
I always enjoyed doing transgender songs.
Patti Smith
I had a really happy childhood - my siblings were great, my mother was very fanciful, and I loved to read. But there was always financial strife.
Patti Smith
I have a daughter who's 11 years old. Maybe she'll grow up independent and really really heavy and become a movie star and she'll play me in my life story.
Patti Smith
I like gettin' old.
Patti Smith
I never thought I was gonna live to 30.
Patti Smith
I think I'm constantly in a state of adjustment.
Patti Smith
I've always thrived on the encouragement of others.
Patti Smith
If I have any regrets, I could say that I'm sorry I wasn't a better writer or a better singer.
Patti Smith
In art and dream may you proceed with abandon. In life may you proceed with balance and stealth.
Patti Smith
In fact, I thought my calling was to be a painter.
Patti Smith
Thanks to the posting over on the Writer's Almanac
and Brainy Quote
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