Patti Smith

Patti Smith (b. 1946, Chicago) is an American singer-songwriter, poet, and visual artist whose work, developed in New York from the late 1960s onward, brought poetry into direct contact with rock music and sustained a practice of personal witness across more than five decades. Raised in New Jersey, she moved to New York City in 1967, entered the downtown literary and art scene, and formed a deep creative and personal partnership with the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe that lasted until his death in 1989. Her early performances — spoken poetry combined with electric guitar — took place in galleries and lofts before moving to the stage of CBGB.

Her debut album, Horses (1975), produced by John Cale, opened with a free-verse reimagining of Van Morrison's "Gloria" and established a practice in which poetic language, literary allusion — drawn from Rimbaud, Blake, and Whitman — and rock energy are inseparable. The albums that followed — Radio Ethiopia (1976), Easter (1978), Wave(1979) — extended this territory, and "Because the Night," co-written with Bruce Springsteen, reached the top fifteen of the Billboard Hot 100 in 1978. Her literary practice runs alongside and through the music: she has published numerous poetry collections, and her memoir Just Kids (2010), an account of her years with Mapplethorpe in New York, received the National Book Award. Her visual art — photographs, drawings, and silkscreen prints — has been shown internationally, including the traveling exhibition Strange Messenger (2002–03), presented at the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, the Haus der Kunst in Munich, and the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, among others.

Smith was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007, named Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture in 2005, and awarded the Polar Music Prize by the Royal Swedish Academy of Music in 2011. She continues to record, perform, publish, and advocate for human rights and environmental causes.