Patti Smith: Evidentiary Material I

Opening night of Patti Smith extravaganza

at Mills College in Oakland

Visions of Patti Smith

The pure products of America go crazy, said William Carlos Williams, a New Jersey poet who introduced fellow New Jersey Poet, Allen Ginsberg, to the literary world writing the introduction to Howl and Other Poems. Allen, in addition to a large number of his own influences and colleagues, in turn influenced another New Jersey Poet, Patti Smith.

He is today very sane and focused, her written work and her views are taken seriously throughout the worlds of music, art, and  letters.
 And she maintain the oneiric, the dream-like in her work. 

But she hit the scene as a fire-brand with a more sur-rational approach to art and performance.

She had these dream monologues that she would launch into against a garage rock vamp, essentially taking a familiar trip but always introducing  the new and unexpected to it, improvising poetic flights on stage in what she called a Babelogue.

After attracting a devoted following as well as considerable scorn from many in the celebrated world of music making and selling.

But eventually came the hit single "Because the Night" and LP Easter, the wider interest in the New Wave bands that followed in her wake, and vindication even if many original fans detected a loss of edge

.

She dropped-out at the to of her career, got married to another cat named Smith and retired to have kids in Detroit, MC 5 territory. Then Fred, and Patti's brother Todd, her early boyfriend and benefactor Robert Mapplethorpe, and Patti Smith Group pianist Richard Sohl,

all died with a few short years.

Slowly and tentatively Patti came back
as few have ever done,

Honors have accrued

Patti gone international

 Patti regards 

the aftermath

 Lovely reception

good wine and food

 Lovely museum

 Worthy of our heroine

 Wall label verbiage

 First encounter

the literary Patti,

Shot used for cover of Seventh Heaven

her first wide-spread book

 New York Street Poet

(Rated X)

 Androgyny
and the orgasm

 Gloria

 in excelsus deo

on Saturday Night Live

 Wow,

there was splendor

there was backlash

 "Piss Factory"

her original signal on the Mer label,

I have the Sire records reissue 

with an autographed pic-sleeve,
A profession of her determination
to matter, to not fade away,
B-side "Hey, Joe"
walks with Patti Hearst

 

 Early show with her

comrades in arms, Television,

Leader Tom Verlaine another of her men

played on Piss Factory/Hey Joe 45

 Patti baby

the girl with the dancing feet

 Sleepy head 

Robert Mapplethorpe

not yet famous

 First of Patti's famous boy friends,

 switched over to boyfriends of his own

Sam Shepard

She acted in his plays

co-wrote a short play with him,

Cowboy Mouth

 Fellow poet
 future rock star,

Jim Carroll

 Love is so strange

love is so pure,

Love is something

you must endure

 I made a Rimbaudian liason with Patti

soon as I saw a random bit on her

first reading with Lenny on lectric guitar

St mark's Place early 70s

Vitrines packed full

of obsessive bootie

 Our fearless leader

 Inspired some fear herself

whenever she grabbed her clarinet

or a feed-back guitar

Outside of Society bootleg LP

it's where I wanna be,

I dig the austere Radio Ethiopia Patti

 Then the hit single happened,

combining Patti's sexy style and grace and 

Bruce Springsteen's calculation

 Jack Kerouac said fame was like

old newspapers blowing down

Bleecker Street

 Hey, I'm a back door man

I looked for the curator who wasn't present,

most here were Patti neophytes

or came for a performance piece

connected to the other half of the opening 

celebrating a well-known dancer

I met one knowledgable Patti follower

remembered the early Rather Ripped records

in-store with Patti

She was "cheated" by the Sex Pistols 

in San Francisco their last show,

Talking about my generation

 

 Intermezzo

A break for refreshment

 while the sun is still in the tall trees

 Songs of Innocence

Part I of IV

Next installment 

examines her mature years

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bekn_DJXeY4