I mean in pants so will salute women in pants on our next episode or today one I support comes from copper beach Institute for mindfulness and Ridgefield Playhouse with Grace Kelly partly sunny today as in the mid seventies mostly sunny housing 72 I'm thankful turning and it's 11 o'clock major funding for enclave that provided by offering car insurance as well as services for homeowners and renters insurance through the Geico Insurance Agency additional information can be found at Geico dot com or 180947. W.v.u. Or Boston at n.p.r. I'm Thomas broke and this is all a point. Of punk rock parody strip knows a little bit about creativity it's been her life sometimes subtle sometimes fiery interplay of dreams of the will and everyday living that brings the spark of creation invention she changed it with her body Robert Mablethorpe co-wrote with Bruce Springsteen in because the night has let her imagination run for half a century and more now and she's thinking about the alchemy of national point poet musician memoir as Patti Smith on creativity and invention. First this news. A line from n.p.r. News in Washington encore of a Coleman hurricane Irma is headed for the Bahamas today after avoiding direct hits on Puerto Rico and the island of Hispaniola top sustained winds are now at 175 miles per hour Irma has left catastrophic damage on other Caribbean islands and officials report at least 9 people have been killed the hurricane may arrive in southern Florida late this weekend there are mandatory evacuations in part of the state as N.P.R.'s Greg Allen reports in Miami Dade and Broward Counties the areas being evacuated or low lying coastal communities and barrier islands like Miami Beach and Key Biscayne shelters are already open in both counties a shelter in Miami Dade County is available for residents from the Florida Keys officials say the evacuations the largest since 2005 and Hurricane Wilma are mandatory but won't be enforced Miami Dade mayor Carlos he man has warned residents who choose to stay that authorities may not be able to help them if they need rescuing throughout south Florida as people prepare for the storm gas lines are long and stores are out of things like batteries and bottled water officials say people shouldn't worry about a shortage of gas deliveries will continue until the weekend when Erma is expected to hit Florida Greg Allen n.p.r. News Miami Florida Governor Rick Scott says officials are aware of the gas shortages we know fuel is very important and we're absolutely voting every state resource to addressing this and we're talking to the federal government about their support. While we're making progress you will see the lines or outages Unfortunately I know this has to be very frustrating and we will not stop working on this Governor Scott says Florida needs more than 17000 volunteers he says that nearly 7000 people have signed up to help in just the last 24 hours a United Nations inquiry has found the Syrian government responsible for a chemical attack in the Syrian town of Qom shake it killed over 80 people last April N.P.R.'s Ruth Sherlock has more. Images of Syrians dying from the sarin gas attack on the 4th of April shocked the White House into action President Donald Trump launched a cruise missile strike against a Syrian government air base from where the u.s. Said the attack was deployed Bashar al Assad's government denied it was responsible and Russia backs that claim but now the United Nations have collected evidence that they say does show Damascus was behind it they called it part of a pattern of the government using chemical weapons against civilians in rebel held areas the report separately condemns ISIS and other groups for attacks on religious minorities in Syria and investigators said they are gravely concerned about the number of civilians killed in the u.s. Led coalition airstrikes with shellac n.p.r. News Beirut on Wall Street the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 11 points at 21819 The Nasdaq is up more than 15 points at 6408 You're listening to n.p.r. News from Washington. The Washington National Cathedral in d.c. Is removing 2 stained glass windows that depict Confederate generals Allie Schweitzer of member station a.m.u. Has more cathedral spokesperson Kevin Ekstrom says local residents had complained about the panels which depict generals Robert e. Lee and Stonewall Jackson we've heard from a lot of people who say I've notices what does and they're part of the reason why I don't want to come to the cathedral Ekstrom says cathedral leaders have been discussing what to do with the windows since the Charleston church shooting in 20151 idea was to use them in some educational way but recent violence in Charlottesville helped guide the decision to remove them the glass windows were donated to the cathedral in 1953 by the United Daughters of the Confederacy after they were removed they'll be put in storage and they can feed real plans to launch a nationwide search for their replacement for n.p.r. News I'm Alex Schweitzer in Washington the u.n. Says 164000 Rohingya Muslims have fled violence in me and Maher they're going to Bangladesh Richard where a Human Rights Watch told N.P.R.'s Morning Edition they're escaping government forces unfortunately the stories that we're hearing now are the same stories that I heard when I was in Bangladesh after the outbreak of violence on October 26th scene which is that disappeared forces are burning down villages there shooting people indiscriminately as they enter villages and that they're using weapons like mortars and machine guns to fire on villagers defacto me and Maher leader son Suchi is blaming the crisis on misinformation I'm corps of a Coleman n.p.r. News support for n.p.r. Comes from n.p.r. Stations other contributors include Rhodes scholar a nonprofit educational travel institution committed to inspiring adults to age adventurously on travel adventures around the world information is available at age adventurously dot org. Hear about the evolution of women in pants from the column back in Russia today at $1.00 and 8 pm jazz vocalist Liz right has come into the Ridgefield Playhouse along with special guest Grace Kelly to enter to win a pair of tickets to the September 16th performance and for contest rules visit w npr dot org slash contests and trees must be submitted by noon on Friday you'll see partly sunny skies today 74 mostly clear tonight lows in the mid fifty's and mostly sunny tomorrow and you're 72. Boston n.p.r. I'm Tom Ashbrook and this is all point. Dad. Said. That the Smith has been creating inventing for a long time now. From the days of punk rock until probably this morning musician poet memoirist. Laureate she's been called the by now she's more than that her 2010 memoir Just Kids won the National Book Award for nonfiction now she's out with a new book devotion about the workings of creativity inspiration obsession solitude this hour on point Patti Smith on creativity and vention you can join us on air or online with this conversation is always on what stirs your creative buzz words 80423255 that's 80423 talk or join us anytime but on point Radio dot org or on Twitter and Facebook at on point Radio joining me now from New York is Patti Smith musician artist writer just kids about her one of the relationship with Robert Mablethorpe won the National Book Award in 2010 m. Train came out in 2015 was a New York Times best seller We talked with her about that Patti Smith Welcome back 20 points great to have you thank you hello nice to talk to you you too it's always great to have you here thanks a lot for coming back today it was fun reading the new book and reading what some of people are writing about you as the new book comes out Meghan Vaal part in the Pop Matters dot com She says Patti Smith is some messed up kind of saint shrouded in the darkness of Gotham hardboiled and sharpshooting on the other hand she glides along the clouds of laps Catholicism innocent and theory Will Smith seems both closer to herself and to her God than most mere mortals feel collapsed some kind of messed up saint in the days these days but. Well hardly a state I would. Agree with the messed up part you know I am a least messy I am often a bit to shovelled but it was very nice what she said but you know there's there's always the equalizers the book has also been cited as claptrap So I think that we just I look at all of these things that people say and and just remember that what really defines you whether it's positive or negative is the work itself so. I think a lot of can't say I can't say that. People would agree with that but I think still think it's really nice what she said and very well written it really was a messed up kind of saint for a punk rock or maybe that's. Just accolade I'm not sure but she's interesting how she picked up on your lapsed Catholicism in the new book you refer back to Simone vey quite often intellectual mystic and and all the rest and it made me wonder plus the fact that you're always tracking heroes down to their gravestones about about your relationship with. Palaces I'm with the mystic. At this point is a girl more or less important in your life well I've never been Catholic I was raised Whitney Yes And but I was drawn to Catholicism basically statically because. Of course within the churches and you go to Europe and you find within the Catholic Church which car vies yos chateau you know. Crucifixes carved by Michelangelo So a lot of my. Relationship with our Most of my relationship with kids Catholicism has a particular interest and ritual and and art and an added thing is that I really like Pope Francis but. You know I mean I haven't had I haven't been part of an organized religion since I was 12 but I'm always attentive . You know I always think I'm always grateful for being alive I'm always thinking of our Creator and you know so I don't have any organized religion but I move freely in any church I'll go to a Senate go to a mosque I'll go to you know I'll pray in a field but not in any died Dec tick way. Our Creator use I mean creation is a subject of devotion. And you convey how I mean it's a book which is interesting it's meditation on creativity and invention in the middle of it there's a short story. And you help us through the pointers of how everyday life kind of fed you raw material that ends up in this story. Along the way you're visiting graves the grave of come over the grave of someone they were pictured to gravestones of the inventors the creatives that you admire Well I think the 1st grave that I visited was Arthur Rimbaud those when I was very young maybe 22 and Shar Ville and I met I have visited many many graves the brown taste Sylvia Plath stag camer shelled I couldn't even begin to count them and I I like visiting the graves of people that I admire and that I've learned from it's a way to it's I just feel it's a nice way to thank them within proximity. I know that. You know again it's it's perhaps there's something ritualistic about it but I find it very comforting you know I. Never got to know Brant Cousy or Sean Shanae but I visited their resting place and and thank them sometimes I'll read sometimes I'll leave them some type of talisman often take a photograph but it also takes me on many adventures because I usually travel alone and I'm not the vacationer type of person so I have a mission and that mission will take me to very unexpected places. The come over family invited you over in the story that you tell in this book the fiction part of it and you say that you rarely visit people's homes because it just gets too involved rather be in the hotel where things are sort of clean and not too complicated but in this case you went would you find it well 1st of all it's basically why I don't like to visit people's homes just because I'm sort of restless I feel confined I'm kind of messy. I don't know I just feel a bit confined no matter how nice everybody is but in visiting them. Again it was a way to. Visit Comeau I saw his books there they were very kind to me. Nothing was expected of me I could come and go as I please he was very very close there and I always wanted to go and I did have some relationship with the family because I sang and sang for commo I wrote pieces I participated in a documentary with them and so I had some relationship with them but what I found was a sense of him and his family and a sense of why he chose this place in southern France to write and to. And just to be alone or be with his family for solitude because it seemed quite like Algeria there he was born and raised as a young fella in Algeria when it was. Yet some of the landscape just the way the landscape the scruffy ness the sort of it almost looked like a fertile desert it just brought to mind. Pictures I've seen of Algeria so I think that there was a certain a style just for him being in this place and coincidentally or not so consequently he rose working on his last book The 1st man there in the room that I was lucky enough to sleep in. And this book goes back to his childhood in Algeria so I think that the landscape there was. Comforting and also inspiring to him it was in his release this manuscript when he died in the u.s. Auto accident you visited the veil of the I guess the family bought with the Nobel Prize he bought it he bought it Ok money I don't know the story of you singing for come but what I mean by that what it was well I don't I mean I sang on his behalf in a documentary but I mean I sing for Pete also that. I said it should make his grave and sang them a little song you know that that's Hell I look at things of I'll sing for them you know talk about things or or just sit there quietly you know so maybe lay it of some wild flowers or you know I find cemeteries quite beautiful you know there's of course a place of sorrow but there also a place of comfort for people you know one goes to visit their mother or I do I visit my departed husband at the cemetery and you just talk about the kids it's just it's it's one knows that they are you know somewhere you know on a journey within the air you know travelling back to God who knows where our people go but you can you can just it's almost symbolic symbolically feel them in this place so I find them very comforting you're a creator a lifelong creator created a lot when you're on your sojourns are you consciously at some level tell the truth Patti Smith are you consciously collecting material well. I think we're all you know one Yes I mean not it's. Consciously or unconsciously whether I'd like it or not the things often. Become you know sort of sacred fodder for one's work. Sometimes I just want to be left alone and not think about anything I don't want to write I don't want to take a photograph I don't want to think of anything but the mind that's why the 1st section is called How the Mind Works because our mind is like a little computer it's taking all of these impulses and and creating despite ourselves we're going to come back and look at Patti Smith's telling a problem mind works when it comes to creativity she writes about in her new book devotion you can join us this hour Are you ready to talk creativity with Patti Smith and she exhibit a for you the coolest role model what gets you in the groove to create to let loose top of aim for the music inside word 804-238-2558 extension 0423 talk. Please don't buy the New York I'm Thomas Brooke this is on point will be right the. 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I'm Thomas focuses on point we're talking this hour with Patti Smith musician writer poet godmother of punk about creativity and invention and her new book and devotion Redondo Beach there from her famous 175 albums horses a long time ago and she still very much at it you can join us this hour Are you ready to talk creativity with Madam Smith do you like Patti Smith let yourself go to create let yourself roll with obsessions fixations is creativity easier when you're younger when you're older when you're older do you just put it out there any specifics to putting it out there in 104238255 is our number 80423 talk. Of the tape way back 972 you were 26 years old Patti just to have the sound of the span of your years in our minds as we think about a lifetime of creativity this was a t.v. Documentary West Side stories but just from Powell following a young Patti Smith as she reflects on her New York City experiences and here she is this was 1972 this came out describing image of New York she'd crafted in her mind before she got there based on representations she'd seen from artists like to Kooning and Jackson Pollock and friends Klein the way I thought of New York in my home wasn't anywhere near the buildings or promised anything to me it was a. Slashing of like dirty Grange came in later representing that the side of the building and then Jackson Pollock painting me to make me work still in all that more of the same city hall so I knew New York once was abstract but it was as stacked the sturdy abstract was abstract classes abstract and street Patti Smith in 1902 penny when you listen to that now and think about creativity over time is what you're writing about in devotion is that the same process whether you're $26.00 there were someone beyond that now. Well Scuse me. I wasn't quite 26 I don't think you're me it doesn't matter is a little younger younger than that Ok. Well to me the creative process for me because multi disciplined this continual it's always been continual when I came to New York I came to be I wanted to be a painter and poet I never thought of being a performer being a singer and so all of my creative energies and all of my process went into drawling studying art. Reading poetry writing poetry performing poetry I've always been working I've been writing stories since I was 7 I've never wanted to be anything else except with any real passion except a writer or an artist and because I'm always my my mind is always working it's always making up stories it's always reinventing if I go to the opera I'm reinventing it off I see a movie I'm changing the ending my mind is always at work. You have a sense of that work the texture of it or the sources of inspiration or the way you see them evolving over time. Well I would. I think that over time my one thing I learned was to rein things in and discipline myself finish things use my time wisely especially when I got married and 1980 and had small children here. I had to set aside a special time say 5 in the morning till 8 in the morning when I could write and have some solitude and that was my my time so I really had to discipline myself and really focus and I that was a very good exercise 16 years of just a discipline which now that I have can do anything anything I want I'm pretty free I still go back to that sense of discipline Here's the very top heavy Smith's new book devotion about creativity inspiration and invention she writes inspiration is the unforseen quantity the muse that is sales of the hidden power the arrows flaw and one is unaware of being struck and the host of unrelated catalysts have joined clandestinely clandestinely to form a system of its own rendering one with the vibration vibrations of an incurable disease a burning imagination and once unholy and divine Do you feel the inspiration want to hit stores just absorb and recognize later. Well that's not all it inspiration a lot of it is manual labor so it's I mean what I was saying I was trying to map out in the beginning of the book is that we have we can be of 2 minds when you think of creating one always thinks what you're going to create something beautiful but the mind will you know of the same mind that create something beautiful will also turn turn on that beauty and destroy it it's part part of the creative process is also a destructive process and then it regenerate regenerative process. Here you share with us as sort of bits impressions moments hit your screen that you later turn in to a story a story that we read in the middle of devotion about a young skater who gets involved with an older man and the drama that ensues there . Is coming around in a way to the same question but do you know those bits the do. The bits that will last when they arrive do you do to look back over recent days are you scribbling in not books not necessarily I mean. This is a unique book it's not a book that I would sit down to write it was it was I was commissioned to. Give a speech at Yale about the process of writing and then to expand it into a little book and I'm not an essay writer and I read many pieces about writing Margarita door us or Virginia Woolf many many people have written about writing so I wanted to approach it in a different way and when I was in Paris I sall accidentally totally accidentally how to approach it I simultaneously wrote a little Novell or short story as I was keeping a diary of the things I was doing my comings and goings in Paris and right in front of me like I say like as if the story is a crime I had all this for Senate evidence of Health the crime was committed and some of it was. You know some very obvious things and other things like a plate of a round perfectly round plate of ham and eggs became a perfectly round skating pond you know these things aren't planned they're just. They're just Simon tenuous impulses and I would never think that I would use a plate of a. And a and the short story abstract it and use it again but then there's other things that are almost like poetry which I write down that I think that's a good line and I will use that line. You can't. It's such a it's such a mix of different impulses some of them. Very controlled some uncontrolled. Patti Smith in a Paris hotel room struggling to stay awake opens the biography of Simone Fey and random. Nods off picks up a new section in the same room she's watching competitive skating on t.v. In a 16 year old Russian comes out steps onto the ice she writes as if nothing else exists wins her triumph of the others brings me to tears and then she writes in my sleep genius combined regenerates moans determined heart shaped face emerges with the face of the young Russian figure skater and the next thing you know we're meeting a novella short story in the middle of this. Which puts all of that to work along with a very round plate of ham and eggs Patti Smith's new book his devotion Mary joins us from to walk he was concent one Meri Jaan the I thank you for calling Well thank you. So good to be able to talk to Patti Smith thank you so much for everything you've done in music thank you you're an icon bought of horses back in the day the i you're on my bucket list I don't know why I didn't see here in Milwaukee 6 months ago you were here and I read the reviews I read em train I saw you want to have a smiley basically called in because I was just excited to hear that you're actually going to be on and you're very deep very intelligent and you send a message so basically this is just accolades to. Thank you for what you've done thank you very much thank you thank you Mary appreciate your call from Wisconsin one more from San Francisco Dave Diamond Dave is calling Dave you're on the air with that. For daddy you know and I know David way that long before punk rock. And it is desert progress when you go way way back before and I'm thinking about your connection with Bob Dylan the very young Bob by Majeed 62 it's really is and I . Well I was a teenager in high school and 1st saw Bob Dylan singing with Joan Baez and then got his records but of course I didn't know him I was just a teenager but it was a life changing event to. To to to have Bob Dylan in my life because. For his social conscience for being anti war being concerned about the environment his sense of poetry and and then Halle broke everything apart kicked through a few walls and I love that even more so yes I have followed Bob Dylan for a long time not really. When he got to vote but I don't know about. Religion it your turn to speak for us of about you. Some of it but it also got to you has a Nobel Prize speech which I'm sure sure you heard and it was amazing what did you write it was amazing whenever you were to have I'll be there there were times when the West and you had talked about obviously you. And your driving it down and it's going to have a zing speech when you think yes I thought it was beautiful and of course is. Very well read filled with wondrous references and and I know that it was quite meaningful for him to receive the prize I did not go to speak for Bob Dylan I went actually I was asked to sing a song before. I mean during the ceremony so I chose hard rain's going to fall but I did not speak but I did sing. I did my best to. Bring my my love and devotion for him with me we're talking with Patti Smith her new book is devotion about creativity and invention I'm Tom Ashbrook this is on point Carolyn in Rutland Vermont your own with Patti Smith thanks for calling Hi and thank you for taking my call hello Patti and. I had a. Couple of your songs stand out to me. Gungho and Gandhi. That the process now how you were able to. Sum up sample attic and the way that you approach. Their biographies and I didn't know I know you didn't meet Gandhi or maybe you've traveled to India but how are you able to. Devote to regenerate and transcend. Heretofore just beautiful to Mike all time favorite thank you for your well in terms of process what I did is I was studying both men and Gandhi simultaneously and it was I read. Several biographies I read their own words I read books most importantly their own words and contemplated deeply both of these men and we went into the studio and it's interesting that you should pick these 2 songs because we went into the studio and I didn't have words for each of them they were sort of musical fields and I do this on every album but on that album I did it twice and the man with kind of a blank slate and just yes and I think yes but not words and improvise and. And both so both of them are improvised pieces and the improvising you have to. You have to channel because there's a lot of you have no words so you have to channel all within you all that you know and all that you can project about your subject and that's how I was able to. To reach a certain point you know. A very far away point it's like. You know you think of culturing going off on a solo he goes as far as he can to God and then he comes back and that's the same with with that end and improvisation you're saying there I have a dream Mr King if you'll beg my pardon I was trespassing a sacred garden and the blossoms in the drop like candy nature cried Gandhi Gandhi Yes it was just it just came to me it was actually these are some very sacred moments to me in the studio because a lot of I labored for you know you could labor for weeks or months on the lyrics to a song and then you go and and when you go under the gun into the studio to improvise you're right there in the moment and that's something that we've always done since the very 1st record bird land land radio Ethiopia radio Baghdad met memento mori there's always a song Constantine's Dream all of these songs are improvised in the studio What's the make it to the record ratio with those improvisations are you say they're essential I mean no but do they sensual do do 6 go by the wayside repartee one that comes together or are you so focused that in the moment it happens and and you press it. It's you can't do 6 you know there are some of them are 14 minutes long I might do 2 perhaps 3 but no more than that and usually I know which one sometimes it's the 1st ones. You know if it's you just know you just know that you've you've said and you've reached a certain point because also if you do it too much you can get like a migraine it's just that such deep concentration so. You know it's usually once or twice. Spontaneous improvised one strand of Patti Smith's creativity there in Gandhi and gungho and others and it's just new book is all about creativity and invention it's called the boat she's with us from New York this Ours is dancing barefoot from 1970 s. Ways so you can join us. Creativity easier when you're young when you're older What's your path to creativity What's your question for Patti Smith on the life art our world our world 480-423-8256 extension 0423 talk. This is on point we'll be right back. To. Live. The man in Washington who's been the unofficial what's junk food started life just like the rest of us you know I'm a kid from Chicago so Santa white blond with us that's where you eat how he reshaped Americans' food habits during the last 40 years plus cleaning up after Harvey and bracing for this afternoon on All Things Considered from n.p.r. . Today beginning at 4. On the next fresh air so many friends from college have become successful the new film Brad status stars Ben Stiller as someone overcome by corrosive jealousy of old college friends who are more successful than he is I'll talk with the film's writer and director Mike White who also wrote the film School of Rock and created the h.b.o. Series Enlightened join us. Today at noon and tonight. Support comes from the Windham Campbell prizes literary festival at Yale featuring the 27000 prize winners in fiction nonfiction and drama kino by Coral Gard September 13th through the 15th free and open to the public Wyndham Campbell dot org partly sunny skies today eyes in the mid seventies mostly clear tonight lows in the mid fifty's and mostly sunny tomorrow 72. 20 minutes until noon back on point. Support for on point comes from Loomis sales an investment partner working to navigate challenging financial markets around the globe and offering investment strategies to clients worldwide since 1026 Learn more at Loomis Sales dot com and college find where college mentors selected from Harvard Duke Northeastern and other schools work with high school students through near peer mentorship to help students discover their passions build resumes and start the college application process college find dot com. Thomas from this is on point we're talking this hour with Patti Smith musician writer poet godmother of punk she's been called about creativity and invention her new book is devotion and that is its subject has a cross there from her 988 album Dream of Life With joins us from New York and join us as well but your question for Patti Smith now 2017 looking around the world on your own path toward creativity 804-232-5504 extension 23 Talk about a lot of people responding online Casey writes I was spent my entire adult life trying to create visual art in the same passionate by visions and spiritual way that Patti Smith speaks and moves with her music Ellen joins us from Belfast Maine Ellen you're on the earth Patti Smith thanks for calling. Hello Patti This is yelling from where you. Are calling. To talk to you so I enjoy your records and I love just kids I can't wait to read the this book and share it with my writing group I want to ask you about your recordings through minute because I would be really interested in hearing a spoken word record of you there that where the poetry is is is really up front and if there's music it's not. Formulated like a song and I'm wondering how you feel about the difference between being performance poet fronting a band and doing spoken word. Well. A lot performing to me always has the same motivation and that's communicating with the people there I don't like singing at people or reading at people I like to feel that you know were of a common mind so in that sense it's not altogether different except for the obvious sonically and the creation of poetry and and lyrics is very different though when I'm writing. The lyrics to a song I have the responsibility to the musician who's written the music and also to the fact that it will be sung to the people and and it has to. You know be communicative to the people and when I'm writing a poem I'm not thinking of anyone I'm not thinking of any kind of responsibility except for the poem itself and so that they come from sort of a different mindset and. I can't remember the 1st part of the question Well that's basically it whether you whether you're interested in performing just spoken or without the music background Well you do a lot yeah I mean I perform all over the I just did a poetry I read poetry and did a few coup stick songs and in Mexico City in a park for 5000 people reading poetry and I often do that it's just I like to mix them because I think since my very 1st reading because I tend to get restless listening to a lot of poetry read and I get restless reading. Just continually reading so I like to break it up with telling stories or singing a little songs. But in terms of recording poetry. I've recorded some I'm working on another project but I've also done to audiobooks. Of them train and just kids and I really enjoy doing that because again you're projecting to the listener I have a little bit of you reading from your poems all the way back again at his 75 because his oath which of course later got talking about talking about mixing things so you got brought into Gloria your invention of the original Van Morrison song here's the is the poem that ended up in the song little bit of Patti Smith reading both in 175 Ok start 1st somebody back now. Now and then a padded. Wild card that must be the carved stone my sins my. They belong to me how did that end up in glory Oh was it well I think that that that particular I that might have been quite early because I already recorded glory and 75 so it's probably much earlier reading but how like. I read that poem I wrote that poem when I was about 20 and then I performed it at St Mark's Church as a poem in 1971 and then when I started working with Lenny Kaye and my pianist Richard soul. I got more and more interested in performing poetry with like sort of a drone behind me or just a couple chords so as I was working on that poem I said. Why don't we why don't we do that on top of like a 3 chord song. And I think it was Lenny who suggested Gloria as a possibility of a good 3 chord song and so I listened to you know the shadows of night and them and all the different versions of Gloria and so I just decided to merge it merge the poem and just go into Gloria because I thought that the. You know just something about the power of Gloria and I like the idea that it's starts out with. You know Jesus died and goes into Gloria it same to. Works Yes It intrigued me but it was really. Alan Lanier who was the keyboard player of the Blue Oyster Cult. We had a relationship at the time and I used to perform the poem quite aggressively and when I was really recording it. With John Cale it was Alan who suggested that I back off a little and and sort of bring it a little bit more slinky and not so aggressively more seductively. And so I did and it was very good advice. In the new book devotion you take us right near Libya and to to the heart of what the task is you say what is the task to compose a work that communicates on several levels as in a parable devoid of the stain of cleverness and you say what is the dream to write something fine that would be better than I am and that would justify my trials and indiscretions to offer proof through a scramble of words that God exists. Hold God peace for a 2nd the stain of cleverness What is it you're looking to avoid there well you know being snarky ironic which isn't my style but you know sometimes you have to or being too you know too clever in place of words or you know just to get involved in ones in their own world but there's you can get so deeply involved in your own world that you can become too clever which you know when I see that I try to unravel it or discard it but the idea is that to do something that is higher than that you know no matter what it is whether it's a memoir or anything it's so easy to be snarky it's so easy to be than Dick to have you know it's so easy to be glib and it's just something I really tried to avoid in the dream to try and write something that would justify my trials and indiscretions. I think in indiscretion is more not so much doing something wrong but. It's I got my own version of that you know and it might be as simple as. You know being more involved in my work sometimes than my fellow human being and so are you know my friends or even my family because I'm very work centric and you know I spend probably the lion's share of my life. You know working and in tandem with being the mother of course I would you know interrupt anything I do if my children need me but you know I'm very work centric and so one would hope that it's not to no avail I don't it's not about fame or fortune or any of that stuff it's it's to actually hopefully add to the canon of work that and Spiers people of endurable work and that's always the dream to do something that can be added to the canon of Pinocchio you know Moby Dick or you know a Child's Garden of Verses whatever it might be Robert Louis Stevenson and to offer proof you write through a scramble of words that God exists what does that mean not you who is with us not a Catholic but nevertheless it's just it's just really you know when you think of your working from the high Yes. I don't know I don't like really trying to analyze or breakdown everything I say I mean I it's just you know we're we're. Maybe it at some point I'm still working on that you're just you're just trying to go whether it's within an improvisation or a performance or writing a poem you're trying to go. As high or as deep as you can to get to that. Pool of universal knowledge that you know that. Some people might call God a higher consciousness so. It's. Something I could probably talk about for hours or not at all I think we get it I think hopefully Jane in Lake Placid New York thank you for calling Jane. And so on it and he sniffed a conversation with you I saw you at Carnegie Hall and you are willing to bet several years ago in the winter and just just when you write there's a lot of love in it because of the put in for us kids my question is I don't love writing I do poetry and 74 and I'm trying to justify my next 20 years of writing and I wanted to ask you the burden in a heavy barriers and I have about that which is most of what I want to say later comes from love or having to reject. And I know you don't much wider and much higher How does. How does the how does something like tenderness and those in the real specifics I know you mentioned earlier this morning the day in the time that you stay away from everything is. Going to lead to something higher but there is a subjective corroborative there is something there in relationships that are so tender and it seems to me it's a little bit forbidding because I don't want to reveal private things concern I'm asking you is when it comes to really getting into poetry's base. And occurred in your life how do you have the bravery and courage to. Somehow describe what Feeley one who express without. Breaking any bonds of confidentiality. Well that's always. That's a continuing struggle for artists or writers. Sometimes because of the eccentricities the egocentric aspect of the artist or the writer or they don't really always think about consequences or they feel that their work justifies what the consequences might be that's a personal. You know that that's that's that's a very personal choice I mean I I don't find anything wrong with self censoring myself I sometimes will. Censor myself just in terms of the feelings of others when I was younger I wasn't so self-centered censoring and sometimes I wasn't concerned how something I might write or say would. Affect a person but when I worked on just kids every single person I wrote about whether I like them or not whether they had been cruel to me or nice to me I tried to think of them 1st as a human being and try to represent them well and I think if this is a deep concern of yours move into fiction and and keep you know you know what you want to say but there's so many things you can do change their genders change there that the time period you know if it's a contemporary story make it in the 1900 century I mean there's there's ways that you can. You can take personal experience and and and reinvent it but it's very hard for a writer to completely. Divest himself from all of the things that make him who he is I'm Thomas Brooke this is on point. Have you been creating over decades no different times in your case lead to different kinds of qualities of creativity when a particular time right now. Well I mean I think that it's just a matter of. Yes For instance if I'm traveling if I'm traveling with the band. It's very hard to write when you're on the road you don't have enough time or solitude and so I take my Polaroid camera and I tend to take more photographs when I'm on the road because I'll just go off by myself for an hour and take a few shots of something I could be a piece of sculpture or could be a gravesite it could be you know and an empty street but. But I'm always doing something you know if I'm in a cafe I might suddenly feel moved to write a poem or walking down the street a little song comes into my head there I have a sort of a disciplinary way of writing in the morning but other than that it might pop out any time. I spend right about creativity and invention and gives us a new Nobel a short story right in the middle of it in a new book devotion that it's always wonderful talking with you good luck to you thank you very much for joining us today thank you thank you Patti Smith new book is devotion was because the night behind us right here like teen 70th best known single performed with the Patti Smith Group. 78 album Easter written with Bruce Springsteen. Listeners you can continue this conversation if you want but podcast at our website on point Radio dot org Follow us on Twitter and Facebook and on point Radio thanks for joining us today I'm Thomas broke this news on point. Point is a production of w. Boston and our. Support for one point comes from the listeners of Boston where the program is produced and from your n.p.r. Station Heather. Supporting African Wildlife Foundation working to ensure the future of Africa's wildlife and wild lands learn more it. Org and the Mosaic foundation of Rita and Peter Hayden based in Ann Arbor honoring the passion of public radio listeners all across America to support their n.p.r. Member stations. This is w when p.r. Connecticut's public media source for news and ideas w when p.r. And w. When p.r. H.d. One merit in 90.5 w p k t. H d one Norwich at 89 point one. F.m. Stamford at 88.5 w.r.i. Southampton at 91.3 and w. When p.r. Dot org. Coming up on the column the story of a woman mountain near who broke records by switching from skirts to pants when she climbed mountains that got us interested in the whole subject of women in pants so will salute women in pants on our next episode. 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