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Transcription: [00:16:42]
{SPEAKER name="David C. Ward"}
a very precocious reader, and you discovered Rimbaud very early on. And could you talk to us a little bit about Rimbaud. I was also specifically interested, why Rimbaud and not Baudelaire?

[00:16:54]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
Well, I think because, first of all, I discovered Rimbaud first. I discovered Rimbaud through the artist Modigliani.

[00:17:01]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
I loved Modigliani when I was in high school, and he loved Rimbaud, and every time I read about him, he was spouting, he was eating hashish and he was spouting Rimbaud, so I wanted to know who Rimbaud was.

[00:17:14]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
And then when I discovered Rimbaud, he just happened to look like Bob Dylan, so that was

[00:17:18]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
um, yeah

{SPEAKER name="David C. Ward"}
That was the killer blow.

[00:17:21]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}

But, um. So I discovered Rimbaud first.

[00:17:24]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
And through Rimbaud, I discovered Verlaine, I discovered Baudelaire, of course. And I admire all of the French poets, Nerval and, um, there's... there's so many of them, Laforgue, I... I love all of these, the French poets of that era.

[00:17:43]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
But Baudelaire, I, um, appreciate him as being the precursor. I know that, you know, that he developed the prose poem and because of him, he helped beget Rimbaud, but I just prefer, truthfully, Rimbaud's language. I think Rimbaud is the better poet.

[00:18:03]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
I think that Baudelaire is like, deserves his place as a father of modernism, Um, you know, of, um, Important critical analysis of painting, and he has written some beautiful things, but I just, truthfully, prefer Rimbaud as a writer.

[00:18:25]
{SPEAKER name="David C. Ward"}
Yeah, it seemed to be that it, it would get to that element of the relationship between self and style. Baudelaire, is.. is, obviously seems to be sorta [[distant?]].

[00:18:32]
{SPEAKER name="David C. Ward"}
So just to get back, I mean, in terms of the task of the poet seems to me in many ways to be the naming things.

[00:18:38]
{SPEAKER name="David C. Ward"}
Well again back, back to a personal. When.. when you.. you see Robert, and then you lose him, and then you find him again in that kind of mysterious, almost Horacio Alger for girls element, um, where you bump into him and he saves you.

[00:18:53]
{SPEAKER name="David C. Ward"}
Um, and he introduces himself, and you say that, you know, "I don't think of you as Bob,

[00:18:59]

{SPEAKER name="David C. Ward"}
can I call you..."

{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
Yeah, "introduce me as Bob."

[00:19:01]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
Well I have an uncle Bob who was a beautiful man, but he was a big, very big, portly sort of awkward guy, and Robert was, you know, so lithe and slim and it just.

[00:19:14]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
I couldn't bring myself to call him Bob, so I said "can I call you Robert?" And he said "ok." And actually, he became Robert ever after.

[00:19:23]
{SPEAKER name="David C. Ward"}
I also have to ask you, were you the one who named Janice Joplin "Pearl?"

[00:19:27]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
No

[00:19:28]
{SPEAKER name="David C. Ward"}
Ok. Because there's that moment on the stairs where you say she looked like


[00:19:31]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
No, I. I just assumed, in fact I, I elaborated on that a little in the paper back, because people ask me that. I didn't mean to, I just figured everyone assumed, that they knew, that was her nickname.

[00:19:45]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
But, um, I was just uh. I was being clever, you know. "No, you're pearl, a pearl of a girl" because pearl was her nickname.

[00:19:57]
{SPEAKER name="David C. Ward"}
Thanks for clearing that up. There is, um, you know, enough with the French poets. Let's go back to America.

[00:20:03]
{SPEAKER name="David C. Ward"}
There's a, the moment where you arrive in New York, when Coultrain dies, I was struck. I was looking at the book again last night, and the next paragraph you talk about being in Frank O'Hara territory.

[00:20:14]
{SPEAKER name="David C. Ward"}
And I couldn't help wonder the correlate... culture and dying and Frank O'Hara, Did you have in mind then, O'Hara's poem "The Day Lady Died?"


[00:20:24]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}

Uh, Yes. When I thought of... I thought of "The Day Lady Died" when I looked at the five, was it the five spot, because she sang there, but really I was thinking of lunch poems

[00:20:36]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
and I have to say, just side tracking a little, I went up and looked at the exhibit. It's just, It's so beautiful. Oh my god, it's so, such a bold, beautiful exhibit and seeing that painting, that Larry Rivers.

[00:20:54]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
I knew Larry Rivers, and I haven't seen that painting in a long time, and that beautiful, was his masterpiece, that painting of Frank O'Hara. And of course the photograph you have of Walt Whitman, I've never seen it.

[00:21:11]
{SPEAKER name="David C. Ward"}
Yeah, the Eakins that we got a couple years ago.

[00:21:13]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
So I'm a Philly girl and Eakins looms large and, you know, something that you, a painter that you learn about, that you study, that you see in the Philadelphia Museum. I never even knew he took photographs like that.

[00:21:27]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
It's so beautiful

{SPEAKER name="David C. Ward"}
They're fantastic.

[00:21:29]
{SPEAKER name="David C. Ward"}
So what about Whitman?

[00:21:31]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
What about him?

[00:21:33]
{SPEAKER name="David C. Ward"}
I'm asking the questions.

{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
Well Walt Whitman, you know, Walt Whitman.

[00:21:35]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
I'm from the Camden area and, uh, Walt Whitman is buried there. He designed his own headstone, its really like a little mausoleum in this, this sort of, uh, beautiful sprawling cemetery in Camden, New Jersey.

[00:21:52]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
And, I love Walt Whitman. He, um, you know he's really, to me I think of, like, sort of, its almost like a spiritual link between William Blake, Walt Whitman, and Alan Ginsburg.

[00:22:06]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
They all seem, in the way you use the word, they're in flux, in flow with one another. And, uh, all containing multitudes, all believing in the animating, animating of the human spirit into work, and, uh, all thinking of generations before them, all very generous men.

[00:22:29]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
And, uh, I love the story of, its so funny, I didn't realize that there was such a controversy over Leaves of Grass, but there's a great story of how a journalist came to see President Lincoln, and he had Whitman's, a, you know, like a galley, I guess a galley of Whitman's poems,

[00:22:48]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
and President Lincoln says "can I see that" and he says "I'll be right back." And he goes in another room and he starts reading and then no one could bother him, and then the journalist wanted his book back and Lincoln didn't want to give it back. So...

[00:23:05]
{SPEAKER name="David C. Ward"}
Now, Whitman had this odd stalkerish relationship with Lincoln where he kind of trailed him around but never they actually never met, even though

[00:23:12]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
I know, its so sad, because I know they would have loved to really. I think they would have loved to meet.

[00:23:17]
{SPEAKER name="David C. Ward"}
Yeah, I, actually have always, just as a slight advertisement I did our show on Whitman, and I always thought Whitman didn't want to meet Lincoln because he was in some senses afraid of him, that it was too, there was too much

[00:23:32]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
I can understand that.

[00:23:33]
{SPEAKER name="David C. Ward"}
You know, too much dailyness

[00:23:35]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
But I think, I think Lincoln would have adored the opportunity to talk to Whitman about his work.

[00:23:43]
{SPEAKER name="David C. Ward"}
Right

[00:23:44]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
You know I think that that's what he would have wanted, to go through poems and ask him about things, cause he was a serious reader of poetry.

[00:23:51]
{SPEAKER name="David C. Ward"}
There's some, there is some notion that Billy Herndon, who, Whitmans, I'm sorry Lincoln's law partner, was a first edition collector, had the Whitman Leaves of Grass and read it in the law office, this was back in Illinois, then Lincoln would have heard them as early as that.

[00:24:05]
{SPEAKER name="David C. Ward"}
But they, again, in terms of those sort of aura, this connection between them, it was, as you say indissoluble.

[00:24:14]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
its almost like you imagine them black and white, cause Whitman always in with his white beard and his white hat and his white suits, and Lincoln always in black and his, you know, his image of, you know, this

[00:24:25]
{SPEAKER name="David C. Ward"}
and so, and and and Lincoln is totally reticent and Whitman is so voluble, and I think that Whitman in some senses thought if they were ever in the same room together it'd be the space time continuum would blow up and then would like fracture everybody else.

[00:24:39]
{SPEAKER name="David C. Ward"}
Since you mention this show and since Georgia O'Keefe is in the show, would you mind reading your poem on Georgia O'Keefe?

[00:24:45]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
Oh ok. Um, I wrote this many, many years ago. Probably around 1970.

[00:24:53]
{SPEAKER name="David C. Ward"}
It comes with a picture that we were unable to borrow.

[00:24:57]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
But, uh, I wrote this in 1971 I believe. And, uh, she was still alive.

[00:25:06]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
And what drew me to write it is, um, a friend of mine, John McKendry, who was the curator of the Met at the time, had gone to visit her and I said "well what does she do now?" and he said "well she, for one thing she's always, you know, got a stick and, you know, killing snakes that are on the property."

[00:25:27]
{SPEAKER name="David C. Ward"}
Who wouldn't.

[00:25:29]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
Georgia O'Keefe/ Great lady painter/ What she do now?/ She goes out with a stick/ and kills snakes

[00:25:38]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
Georgia O'Keefe/ All life still/ Cow Skull/ Bull Skull, skull/ No bull shit/ pyrite pyrite/ she's no fool/ She started out pretty/ Pretty, pretty girl

[00:25:51]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
Georgia O'Keefe/ Until she had her fill/ painted desert/ flower cactus/ hawk and head mule/ choral water color/ red coral reef/ been around forever/ Georgia O'Keefe

[00:26:05]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
Great lady painter/ What she do now?/ Go and beat the desert/ stir dust bowl/ go and beat the desert/ snake skin skull/ go and beat the desert/ all life still.

[00:26:21]
{SPEAKER name="David C. Ward"}
Thank you.

[00:26:27]
{SPEAKER name="David C. Ward"}
You have, you have another poem, that's longer and grimmer, where you talk about Jackson Pollock's death as a work of art. And, to be honest, I, I have trouble with that. Could you...?

[00:26:39]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
Uh, well that's a diff... that's a difficult poem. What that is is actually, its not so much about Jackson Pollock, it's really a, um, it's a meditation on Robert Bresson's movie Au Hasard, Au Hasard Balthazar.

[00:26:56]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
And, uh, it...it...it's sort of uh, it's difficult to break down.

[00:27:02]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
But in a part of it, it talks about Jackson Pollock.

[00:27:06]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
Um. It says "from his mad wrist spin us, we're all children of Jackson Pollock." You know we're all children of like the, the fusion of uh, of uh, mind and motion of uh Jackson Pollock.

[00:27:23]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
But it talks about, I think you are talking about the

[00:27:25]
{SPEAKER name="David C. Ward"}
Yes

[00:27:26]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
It talks about, it says that he is, uh, um, again, oh uh, artist and murderer, Jackson...

[00:27:33]
{SPEAKER name="David C. Ward"}
Yes

[00:27:34]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
Well, yes I wrote that as, again, as a young girl, I loved Jackson Pollock. Uh, Um.

[00:27:40]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
But that, I stepped away and looked at what he did at the end of his life. He, um uh. And I got it from a, uh, Frank O'Hara poem.

[00:27:50]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
First bunny died, and then Jackson. Jackson, I think, who always said there are no accidents, just brazenly went out, took his life, but he took a young girl down with him.

[00:28:05]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
So, in that way, he is a murderer. He created a, you know and the debris of that I was imagining it as like Pollock's last work.

[00:28:17]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
You know, the blood of this girl and his own being, uh, the drips from their blood being Pollock's last work. It wasn't written with any judgement or anything. It was just a meditation.

[00:28:29]
{SPEAKER name="David C. Ward"}
Yeah, you may even be right.

[00:28:32]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
Well, it doesn't even matter who's right or wrong. I don't have any judgement of it. It was just a vision.

[00:28:38]
{SPEAKER name="David C. Ward"}
What I again, given this, what sense is this sort of duality of your career.

[00:28:41]
{SPEAKER name="David C. Ward"}
I'm thinking, cause its, frankly, been on my mind a bit, the [[??]] show, that on the one hand Pollock, on the other hand Jasper Johns form you, there's the, the element of quite, the the, I mean the picture that we have in the show, Ventriloquism, with the sense of, of of, you know, creating, of speaking with your own voice, develop your own voice in a way which is the, the post abstract expressionist sense of.

[00:29:07]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
Well, I mean, I don't know exactly really where we're going will this question. Except if I try to glean something out of it. You know for myself, I've always had an irreverent streak and that's got me in trouble a lot. And it will always get me in trouble.

[00:29:26]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
But on the other hand, I also have a classical streak, the other part of me. What do I listen to at night, I listen to Glenn Gould. What do I like to go to, I like to go to the opera. You know, how do I feel about the museum right now, I think that the museum did a beautiful and elegant and bold exhibit and I think that's my main concern, you know.

[00:29:49]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
I don't, You know I don't, I can't be pinned down to, and and be expected to think in gonna be all that way. You know and, you know, um, relate to everything that happens as if I was a 22 punk rocker.

[00:30:07]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
You know, I'm just, I'm myself, you know, I'm just as, I can be just as obnoxious as I was when I was 20 and I can also be, you know, hopefully a compassionate human being, but I'm not all one or the other. Because as Walt Whitman said, we contain multitudes.

[00:30:28]
{SPEAKER name="David C. Ward"}
Where did, I mean you

[00:30:33]
{SPEAKER name="David C. Ward"}
Where did, I mean you had said, you had said again with the NBA never forget that book, you, where do you see the humanities and the arts going? Where do you...?

[00:30:45]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
Well I mean I think that, you know, I'm not the, who will decide that is the new generation. I'm not, I'm not a, you know, a sociological visionary.

[00:30:58]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
You know, perhaps when I was younger. At this point, its going in places that I probably couldn't even imagine.

[00:31:08]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
You know, I cant keep up with the, you know, the technology, the lack of privacy, you know, the blurring of every single line.

[00:31:16]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
Uh, the cult of celebrity, I cant keep up with all that. All I can do is just do my work, have faith in new generations that they'll, you know, navigate through all the crap that is being issued. or you know this uh, this um obsession with notoriety, and that they'll go do good work.

[00:31:40]
{SPEAKER name="David C. Ward"}
Um, will you play for us?

[00:31:44]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
Um, Yeah. I can do a song.

[00:31:46]
{SPEAKER name="Patti Smith"}
Is it time already?