Creative Process: Patti Smith

When it comes to American icons, there are few people as talented, honest, and enigmatic as Patti Smith. From her influential music and legendary status as the godmother of punk to her award-winning poetry and prose, Smith has consistently created art that challenges audiences to think and feel, stripping the world down to its bones just to build it back up again.

When someone is as influential and successful as Patti Smith, who has won countless awards and was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, people are often very curious about the artistic process. How does she get her ideas?

Smith has always been very open about how she creates her work. Much of it is drawn from her day-to-day life. In an interview with Yale News, she explains how watching a teenage Russian skater on television gave her the beginnings of an idea for a work called Devotion. Most often, the alchemy that produces a poem or work of fiction is hidden in the work itself, if not embedded in the coil and reaches of the mind, she says. She also discusses how traveling has had an impact on her art.

In an interview with Audible, Smith opens up about how the people in her life help her create art. Her National Book Award-winning memoir Just Kids was written as a promise she made to her longtime friend and former lover Robert Mapplethorpe just before he died. She also talks about how her late husband, the musician Fred Smith, influenced and inspired her work, a relationship she explores further in her second memoir, M Train.

In the anthology More Songwriters on Songwriting, Smith compares her different processes for writing poetry and music. When I’m sitting down to write a poem, I’m not thinking of anyone. I’m not thinking about how it will be received. I’m not thinking it will make people happy or it will inspire them. I’m in a whole other world. A world of complete solitude, Smith shares. But when I’m writing a song, I imagine performing it. I imagine giving it. It’s a different aspect of communication. It’s for the people.

Sometimes the best way to understand the creative process is by watching or listening to an artist in action. In the genre-bending Audible Original Patti Smith at the Minetta Lane, Smith opens with a Rilke song set to music, then performs a few of her most famous songs and tells stories about how they came about. She also provides personal anecdotes about Mapplethorpe, her husband, and Allen Ginsburg—and is even joined onstage by her children, Jesse Paris and Jackson.

It is an incredibly intimate experience, hearing the stories straight from Smith’s lips. She is a seasoned performer, an engaging speaker who makes a real connection with her audience and exudes a rare bloom of originality. Whether you are new to her work or a longtime fan, it’s a special treat. For more Patti Smith, stay tuned for her upcoming memoir, Year of the Monkey, releasing on September 24, 2019.