Dancing Barefoot: The Patti Smith Story (40 page)

And to remind them of what she had always believed and how she had always lived her career. That an artist is nothing if she cannot renew, revisit, and entirely revise her own work—or someone else’s.

There have been missteps; there have been misdirections. There have even been moments when you read her sounding off about something in yet another interview and wish that she would just shut up for a moment. But through it all, Patti has remained true to herself and true to her beliefs, which means she has remained true to the people who believe in her.

Today, Patti is in her sixties, but she shows no sign of slowing down. She still calls New York City home and is a familiar sight on the streets of Greenwich Village, marching down Spring Street on her way out or perched in her favorite corner of Da Silvano Italian restaurant, just a few blocks from the Café Wha? and the Bitter End, the citadels of the Greenwich Village that once haunted her youthful dreams, and still a landmark for today’s young aspirants.

Her children are grown and living their own lives. Her guitarist son, Jackson, familiar to his mother’s fans from his occasional appearances alongside her, is the leader of his own band, Back in Spades, and is himself now married. He wed White Stripes drummer Meg White in May 2009 in Nashville (in White’s ex-husband Jack White’s back yard!); the couple now live in Detroit. Daughter Jesse, too, is a musician, an accomplished pianist who has also performed alongside her mother, and opened a number of shows for her, as well.

Patti, meanwhile, works not because she has to but because she can. She toured through 2008, and took Rock’n’Rimbaud to the Melbourne International Arts festival. That same year, she played five sets in one night at l’Église Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the Parisian church with a Picasso in its garden that she had been too shy to enter forty years before.

The following year, she returned to Meltdown, a guest of curator Ornette Coleman, and remembered William Blake at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City.

She remembered Jim Carroll too, struck down by a heart attack as he sat at his desk on September 11, 2009. She attended his memorial at St. Mark’s several months later, taking the stage with Lenny Kaye to perform, of course, “People Who Died.”

And, in January 2010, she offered at last her definitive account of the life of Robert Mapplethorpe. Not merely a memorial in poetry or impressionistic prose, and destined for a National Book Award,
Just Kids
was the story Patti had witnessed firsthand, as she and Mapplethorpe grew and grew up together—the story she had promised him she would write. The process had taken her a lot longer than she expected it to, not because it was difficult, but because life had gone on around her writing, pulling her away time and time again. When it came to telling the story, however, the words flowed easily. “I had so much material to work from,” she told
OregonLive.com’s
Jeff Baker. She had maintained voluminously detailed journals, and as she browsed through them, every entry would bring another snippet: The days when she would cut Mapplethorpe’s hair, or chop her own into a style like Keith Richards’s. The day they lunched with William Burroughs, or the one when they met Janis Joplin.

“Met Salvador Dalí. He called me a gothic crow.”

“Robert took me to the Factory to see
Trash.”

Even after the couple parted and their lives shot off on very different trajectories, they had kept in constant contact through long letters that documented their lives and their work for each other. Patti had pored over them all, and she was now rewarded as
Just Kids
received nothing but fulsome praise.

“Smith’s prose,” declared reviewer Amy Hanson, “is striking, acerbic and thought provoking. How could it be anything else? This book, a history and eulogy and an offering is as lyrical as anything she has ever done. It’s a broad stroke that captures the very essence of what New York City was during this illustrious heyday, but more importantly,
Just Kids
is an honest and intimate portrait of a man who would very quickly become one of America’s eminent photographers, told from a perspective that only memoir can offer.”

She retold her own story as well, only this time on film.
Patti Smith: Dream of Life
was filmmaker Steven Sebring’s remarkable documentary of a life without barriers, autobiography seen through the haze of privacy—a movie, said Patti, that made her cry.

Eleven years in the creation (and deservedly nominated for a 2010 Emmy),
Patti Smith: Dream of Life
was just that, a dream of a life. Sebring first met Patti when he photographed her for a
Spin
magazine feature in 1995; she had requested him on Michael Stipe’s recommendation, and as they waited for the shoot to begin, they retired to a nearby coffee shop to talk.

He photographed her, and when she looked at the proofs she realized that he had captured her as she saw herself, as an artist but also as a mother and a widow. And he had done so without any artifice. He was not a fan. “Steven didn’t know anything about me when we met,” Patti recalled to writer Tony Sclafani. “He hadn’t listened to my music. He didn’t know anything about my history.” So when Sebring mooted the notion of filming her over the next few years, she was immediately tempted.

More than a decade later, he put away his camera. “I find it a very human portrait,” Patti said. “It’s very present tense, which is the only reason I agreed to do it. I wanted it to be a very present-tense experience. It’s not shackled by too much history or a lot of talking heads. It’s life, you know—I’m not dead! And I like the fact that even though there’s obvious time passing—my children grow within the film, I lose my parents within the film—it’s still all shot in present tense.”

And she still lives in the present tense, even when time does slip past too quickly.

Patti’s 2005 volume
Auguries of Innocence,
her first collection of all–new poetic work in a decade, ends with a piece called “The Writer’s Song.” Its final words may be the epitaph that awaits Patti Smith at the end of her life. It reminds us that
it is better to write / then die.
For …

… be we king

or be we bum
the reed still whistles
the heart still hums.

APPENDIX

PATTI SMITH ON RECORD

BOOKS AND ANTHOLOGIES

Seventh Heaven
(1972)

T
ELEGRAPH
B
OOKS
, B
OSTON

Paperback, 47 pp.; publication included fifty signed and numbered first editions: “Seventh Heaven” • “Sally” • “Jeanne Darc” • “Renee Falconetti” • “A Fire of Unknown Origin” • “Edie Sedgwick” • “Crystal” • “Marianne Faithfull” • “Girl Trouble” • “Cocaine” • “Judith” • “Fantasy” • “Marilyn Miller” • “Mary Jane” • “Amelia Earhart I” • “Amelia Earheart II” • “Linda” • “Death by Water” • “Celine” • “Dog Dream” • “Female” • “Longing”

kodak
(1972)

M
IDDLE
E
ARTH
P
RESS
, P
HILADELPHIA

Paperback, 17 pp.; edition of one hundred copies printed by the Middle Earth Bookstore, numbered and signed by the author: untitled (“As close as the killer …”) • “k.o.d.a.k.” • “Star Fever” • untitled (“Renee Falconetti”) • untitled (“Georgia O’Keeffe”) • “Radando Beach” • “Conch” • untitled (“Prayer”) • “Balance”

Early Morning Dream
(1972)

P
UBLISHER
U
NKNOWN

Chapbook, 8 pp.; edition of one hundred copies: “Early Morning Dream”

Witt
(1973)

G
OTHAM
B
OOK
M
ART
, N
EW
Y
ORK

Hardcover and paperback, 45 pp.; edition of one hundred hardcovers signed and numbered: “Notice” • “Witt” • “October 20” • “Dragnet” • “Dream of Rimbaud” • “To Remember Debbie Denise” • “Sonnet” • “Mock Death” • “What Makes Ruda Ivory” • “Rape” • “Georgia O’Keefe” [sic] • “Mustang” • “Conch” • “Soul Jive” • “Picasso Laughing” • “Gibralto” • “Precious Little” • “Notice 2” • “Judith Revisited (Fragments)” • “Balance” • “Prayer” • “Translators”

Angel City, Curse of the Starving Class & Other Plays,
by Sam Shepard (1976)

U
RIZEN
B
OOKS
, N
EW
Y
ORK

245 pp.: includes
Cowboy Mouth,
which Patti cowrote with Shepard, and a five-page poem by Patti, “Sam Shepard: 9 Random Years [7 + 2]”

The Night,
by Patti Smith and Tom Verlaine (1976)

A
LOES
B
OOKS
, L
ONDON

Paperback, 14 pp.: contains twenty-two numbered poems, the odd-numbered ones written by Patti and the even-numbered ones written by Verlaine

A Useless Death
(1977)

G
OTHAM
B
OOK
M
ART
, N
EW
Y
ORK

Chapbook, 3 pp.; edition of three hundred numbered and signed copies, and twenty-six lettered and signed copies: “A Useless Death”

Ha! Ha! Houdini!
(1977)

G
OTHAM
B
OOK
M
ART
, N
EW
Y
ORK

Chapbook, 8 pp.; edition of 126 copies signed and numbered (1–100) or lettered (a—z): “Ha! Ha! Houdini”

Patti Smith
(1977)

W
ARNER
B
ROS
. P
UBLICATIONS
, N
EW
Y
ORK

Paperback, 104 pp.: collected notes and lyrics to most of the songs from
Horses
and
Radio Ethiopia,
plus poetic entries

Patti Smith—Gallerie Veith Turske
(1977)

G
ALERIE
V
EITH
T
URSKE
, C
OLOGNE
, W
EST
G
ERMANY

Paperback, 44 pp.: gallery catalog from an October 1977 exhibition of Patti’s drawings and paintings; includes some poems, lyrics, magazine articles, and other works

Babel
(1978)

G. P. P
UTNAM’S
S
ONS
, N
EW
Y
ORK

Hardcover and paperback, 202 pp.: “Notice” • “Italy (the Round)” • “The Tapper Extracts” • “Grant” • “Street of the Guides” • “Rimbaud Dead” • “Sohl” • “Neo Boy” • “Dog Dream” • “Mirza” • “The Stream” • “Dream of Rimbaud” • “Doctor Love” • “Munich” • “High on Rebellion” • “Ain’t It Strange” • “Egypt” • “Rape” • “Space Monkey” • “Suite” • “Notice 2” • “Judith” • “Georgia O’Keefe” [sic] • “A Fire of Unknown Origin” • “Edie Sedgwick” • “Judith Revisited (Fragments)” • “Marianne Faithfull” • “Sister Morphine” • “Bread” • “Sterling Forest” • “Grass” • “Vandal” • “The Amazing Tale of Skunkdog” • “Konya the Shepherd” • “Sandayu the Separate” • “Conté” • “Saba the Bird” • “Thermos” • “Enculé” • “The Sheep Lady from Algiers” • “Penicillin” • “Robert Bresson” • “Carnival! Carnival!” • “k.o.d.a.k.” • “Mad Juana” • “The Salvation of Rock” • “Corps de Plane” • “Jeanne Darc” • “Jenny” • “Health Lantern” • “Hymn” • “The Ninth Hole” • “Thread” • “A Fleet of Deer” • “Easter” • “Chain Gang” • “Babel” • “Pinwheels” • “Comic Warrior” • “Babelogue” • “Combe” • “Babel Field” • “Zug Island”

Woolgathering
(1992)

H
ANUMAN
B
OOKS
, N
EW
Y
ORK

Paperback, 80 pp.: “A Bidding” • “The Woolgatherers” • “Barndance” • “Cowboy Truths” • “Indian Rubies” • “Drawing” • “Art in Heaven” • “Flying” • “A Farewell”

Early Work, 1970–1979
(1994)

W.W. N
ORTON
, N
EW
Y
ORK

Hardcover and paperback, 177 pp; limited-edition hardcover in slipcase, 150 signed and numbered copies: “Prayer” • “Ballad of a Bad Boy” • “Oath” • “Anna of the Harbor” • “The Sheep Lady from Algiers” • “Work Song” • “Notebook” • “Conversation with the Kid” • “The Ballad of Hagen Waker” • “Seventh Heaven” • “Amelia Earhart” • “k.o.d.a.k.” • “Dog Dream” • “Jeanne d’Arc” • “A Fire of Unknown Origin” • “Death by Water” • “The Amazing Tale of Skunkdog” • “Notice” • “Witt” • “Piss Factory” • “Balance” • “Dream of Rimbaud” • “Notice 2” • “Judith Revisited” • “Georgia O’Keeffe” • “Picasso Laughing” • “Rape” • “Gibralto” • “Ha! Ha! Houdini!” • “Schinden” • “16 February” • “Jet Flakes” • “Translators” • “Easter” • “Neo Boy” • “Sohl” • “Land” • “Suite” • “Grant” • “December” • “Doctor Love” • “AFTER/WORDS” • “ps/alm 23 revisited” • “Rimbaud Dead” • “Thermos” • “The Ballad of Isabelle Eberhardt” • “Corps de Plane” • “Babelfield” • “Babelogue” • “High on Rebellion” • “The Salvation of Rock” • “Hymn” • “Munich” • “Health Lantern” • “Penicillin” • “Robert Bresson” • “Burning Roses” • “Thread” • “A Fleet of Deer” • “Scream of the Butterfly” • “Y” • “Combe” • “Wave” • “Florence” • “Wing” • “Italy” • “True Music”

Living with the Animals,
edited by Gary Indiana (1994)

F
ABER
& F
ABER
, B
OSTON

Hardcover and paperback, 250 pp.: anthology that includes an expanded prose version of “Mirza”

The Coral Sea
(1996)

W.W. N
ORTON
, N
EW
Y
ORK

Hardcover, 72 pp.: “The Passenger M” • “The Throw” • “Light Play” • “Rank and File” • “Music (a Woman)” • “Staff of Life” • “After Thoughts” • “An Auctioned Heart” • “A Bed of Roses” • “Monkeyshines” • “The Herculean Moth” • “The Solomon Islands” • “The Pedestal” • “Crux” • “Magua” • “Imago”