Patti Smith: The poet who became rock legend – celebrating 50 years since her first album

Long before it becomes a rock legend and “punk godfather”, the Patti Smith78 years old, was a poet working at Scribner, a bookstore next to the Rockefeller Center in New York. She lived with her then -partner, photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, at Chelsea Hotel, in which Leonard Cohen dedicated a song to which she also lived, like other music idols: Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin and more.

Patti Smith could also be described as “Flaneuse”, the French word that became popular by Bodler and refers to a street man who walks without a destination and who uses the observation as part of his creative process. Her life is narrated through books, especially “Just Kids”, which among his many awards counts the famous National Book Award for non -fictional works, has sold more than a million copies and has been translated into 43 languages.

Smith is a brave woman. She never “chewed” her words to remain liked, nor did she care about her consequences not to be politically correct. Activism was an important part of her career, with the struggle against the climate crisis being her most difficult task. He held a pre -election campaign for Ralph Nander of the Greens Party in the 2000 presidential election and for John Kerry in 2004.

He led demonstrations against the war in Iraq and in February wrote on Instagram that “Palestine belongs to the Palestinians”. Michael Stipe, Frontman of REM, has said many times that “Horses” was the album that inspired him the most to make music. She awarded her the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis medal, an recognition that pays tribute to everyday New York citizens who have done excellent work in the public service. “She is a great mother and grandmother. She is an activist and a reference point for me and for millions of people. A lighthouse of hope, action and refuge with all the concepts »he has stated himself about Patti Smith.

Daughter of an engineer and waitress, with a voice of a jazz singer, Smith grew up as the older of her four brothers in a poor but artistic and knit family. He started working at the age of 10 in fields, and did the babysitting. From an early age he was in a permanent movement. Her family moved from Chicago to Philadelphia and then to New Jersey. Although she was brought up as a Witness of Jehovah, her true religion was poetry, since her 16, when she discovered Rembo’s “Illuminations”, which she considered her secret love.

Its story is based on durability and determination. Where others were falling, she became stronger. When she became pregnant at 20 by … accident – she gave the baby for adoption – and was eliminated from the university, she had the feeling that everything would go well and that she would eventually become creative. ‘An overwhelming sense of mission overshadowed my fears […] I would become an artist. I would prove my value »wrote on “Just Kids”. Shortly after childbirth, Smith arrived in New York by bus without plan and savings. There, he took photos, wrote poetry and music reviews as a way of expressing and existence. She liked to recite poetry to the iconic church St. Marks with Lenny Kay on the guitar and Andy Warhol and Lu Reed to the public, in that creative and dangerous New York in the 1970s. He wrote that the poverty of the profession he had chosen was not. Maybe that’s why, when visionary music producer Sandy Pearlman saw her read and suggested that she record an album, Smith responded with a laugh.

In 1975, “Horses” will be released, which was expected to turn it into a rock star that would shake the Punk-Rock movement of New York. It was an album that would revolutionize not only music but also in many people’s lives and celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. She never drank, she never used drugs, certainly for the benefit of her creativity. Lenny Kaye was surprised when the artist moved to the outskirts of Detroit to have a family with fellow musician, Fred “Sonic” Smith, with whom he had two children. Following the success of the first album, the singer’s decision to retire from public life has worried many. In the years that followed, she lived a quiet life, giving priority to her own program over market demands.

After her husband’s death in 1994, Smith returned to her music career with the album “Gone Again” (1996), for which she reunited with her band as if it had not been time. “I have always considered poetry from the most important and difficult forms of art. It often turns out to be quite difficult, difficult to interpret. It contains so much beauty and universal or alchemical thinking. Few poets won the recognition »she has stated herself.

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