Rock Beginnings Now and Then: Keepaway and Patti Smith's Just Kids


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Keepaway

Pitchfork, the music blog, gives Keepaway a 9! Best new music....

Check out our previous Keepaway report on December 20th

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Today, I read Patti Smith's new memoir about Robert Mapplethorpe completely in one sitting, from page 1 to page 276, without moving from the table I was sitting at in Barnes and Noble.

I learned in hearing an interview with Patti Smith that much of this book is drawn from her extensive and detailed journals. I found Just Kids to be poet's journal writing on a par with Stephen Spender's Journals 1939-1983, Cesare Pavese's The Burning Brand, Ned Rorem's The Paris Diary, Allen Ginsberg's Journals Early Fifties Early Sixties, Paul Auster's Hand to Mouth, Bernadette Mayer's Studying Hunger, Anne Sexton's A Self-Portrait in Letters and, dare I say it, The Diaries of Franz Kafka.

In the best writer's journals, as in Just Kids one might find beautifully stated not only the considered insights of an original and culturally significant mind and talent, but the raw experiential material from which these insights have been exacted. As in Pavese's The Burning Brand, Patti Smith offers the outlines of a philosophy of life culled from experiences daringly sought out, that, in some moments, brought searing pain, and others, excitement on an historically important scale. But here is where the comparison to Pavese's journals takes a 90 degree turn. Where Pavese ends his journal with a decision to bring his life to an early close, Smith clearly offers a parable, with no small degree of wit, of strength, compassion, fortitude, devotion and contemplation that drinks deeply from the well of aesthetic meditation and mysticism. But beyond all this, for me Patti Smith's memoir reveals and underscores both the difficulties of and the abiding value of patience and persistence in friendship, love, marriage and parenthood.

In a passage about her involvement with the Poetry Project in the early 70's, she writes: "Later that evening I sat on the floor of St. Mark's for the annual Marathon reading...I sat through much of it sizing up the poets. I wanted to be a poet but I knew I would never fit into their incestuous community. The last thing I wanted was to negotiate the social politics of another scene. I thought of my mother saying, that what you do on New Year's Day will foretell what you'll be doing for the rest of the year. I felt the spirit of my own Saint Gregory and resolved that 1973 would be my year for poetry." In the surrounding passages, Smith makes clear her respect for some of the central poetic lights of that era such as Allen Ginsberg, Bernadette Mayer, Gerard Malanga, Gregory Corso and Anne Waldman and her close friend, Janet Hamill. She fondly remembers Allen Ginsberg once offering her some change when she was broke and hungry at an automat, mistakenly taking her for a cute guy! When I met and once read with Patti Smith in the early 70's little did I know, since she looked so young, that she had already been harshly paying her dues as an aspiring poet and artist in New York for 6 or 7 years.

In interviews and in the book, Patti Smith makes it clear, but in a discrete, sensitive and tactful way, that in many ways Mapplethorpe's commitment to daring sexual experimentation in his work and in his life, and in his unabashed search for connections with wealthy upper class patrons were a far cry from Patti Smith's equally stubbornly pointed populist path. But in no way would either Mapplethorpe or Smith allow their gradually diverging styles and philosophies to end their friendship. As you can see from the reviews below, all agree as to the clarity of Smith's prose in this book. Its pace is faultless, never lingering, rarely rushing, its tone warm yet light and never platitudinous or mawkish. There is little blatant poeticism, evidence of a stylistic restraint I would advise all of her contemporaries, including myself, to pay close heed to. This factor greatly amplifies every moral Smith wants you to take from this book, yet she refrains from making these conclusions overt. On the other hand, she does not obscure them with impressionism or post modernism. The fact that this memoir is based on her extensive journals leads to two more things I want to mention. One is that the constant reference to objects that Patti Smith describes, whether a hat Jimi Hendrix is wearing, or an attitude she picks up from a Jim Morrison performance, or a social moment with Salvator Dali (he puts his hand on her head when noticing a stuffed crow she had purchased from the Natural History Museum), or the first guitar she ever bought, or the many fascinating found objects she receives at the Chelsea Hotel from her friend Harry Smith, or an outfit she wore to woo a band, or the toys she played with as a child, all of these keep the narrative fastened securely to the here and now, a dimension in which she obviously is determined to remain, through ecstasy and death, success and failure, tragedy and triumph. The second thing I wanted to mention is that I predict that every reader of this book will be impatiently waiting for more writing from the many and varied treasures carefully and lovingly stored in Patti Smith's journals.

Critical Praise for Just Kids
“Terrifically evocative and splendidly titled...JUST KIDS is the most spellbinding and diverting portrait of funky-but-chic New York in the late ’60s and early ’70s that any alumnus has committed to print. The tone is at once flinty and hilarious, which figures: [Smith has] always been both tough and funny, two real saving graces in an artist this prone to excess. What’s sure to make her account a cornucopia for cultural historians, however, is that the atmosphere, personalities and mores of the time are so astutely observed...This enchanting book is a reminder that not all youthful vainglory is silly; sometimes it’s preparation. Few artists ever proved it like these two.”
— NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
“Tenderly evocative...it makes perfect sense for [Smith] to use a memoirist’s sleight of hand...to recapture an eager, fervent and wondrously malleable young spirit. It also makes sense for her to cast off all verbal affectation and write in a strong, true voice unencumbered by the polarizing mannerisms of her poetry.”
— JANET MASLIN, NEW YORK TIMES
“Smith’s intimate memoir is a tender elegy for the man with whom she had a two-decade-long relationship...”Just Kids” is astonishing on many levels, most notably for Smith’s lapidary prose...As a primer on self-discovery and the artist’s journey, “Just Kids” is as inspiring as Rilke’s “Letters to a Young Poet.” It reminds us that becoming an artist is a worthwhile and brave endeavor....There’s no need to ghettoize this book by praising it as an impressive memoir by a famous musician. It is simply one of the best memoirs to be published in recent years: inspiring, sad, wise and beautifully written.”
— SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
“A heartbreakingly sweet recollection of just that sort of vanished Bohemian life...Just as [Smith] stands out as an artiste in a movement based on collectivism, her singular voice gleams among rock memoirs as a work of literature.”
— BOSTON GLOBE
“[JUST KIDS] is funny and sad but always exhilarating. Smith’s sense of wonder at the possibilities of art, and of New York City, seems as fresh as it was the day she first arrived in Manhattan. And as rooted as their story is in the eventful late ‘60s and early ‘70s, Smith’s graceful prose reminds us of the timelessness of love and friendship.”
— TAMPA TRIBUNE
“Patti Smith’s telling of the years she spent with Robert Mapplethorpe is full of optimism sprinkled with humor...JUST KIDS...is sorely lacking in irony or cynicism; Smith’s worldview is infectious. She’s a jumble of influences, but that’s part of her charm.”
— AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN
“The most compelling memoir by a rock artist since Bob Dylan’s ‘Chronicles: Volume One,’ written with intimacy and grace, filled with revelation about a romance that might seem inscrutable to anyone but the two who were once so passionate about each other and remained so passionate about each other’s work.”
— CHICAGO TRIBUNE
“A moving portrait of the artist as a young woman, and a vibrant profile of Smith’s onetime boyfriend and lifelong muse, Robert Mapplethorpe, who died of AIDS in 1989...JUST KIDS is ultimately a wonderful portal into the dawn of Smith’s art.”
— LOS ANGELES TIMES
“A remarkable book --sweet and charming and many other words you wouldn’t expect to apply to a punk-rock icon.”
— NEWSDAY
“The reckless, splendid circus of New York’s royal bohemia in the 1960s and ‘70s — rock idols, cowboy poets, Warhol Superstars — surrounds Smith in her heady recounting of a halcyon era. But the heart of Just Kids, a captivating memoir, is the lifelong love affair (first romantic, later creative and platonic) between Smith and photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, before she became music’s punk poet laureate and he one of the art world’s most provocative and controversial figures. In her inimitable, lyrical style, Patti Smith recalls the pair’s coming together as young, monumentally broke dreamers: ‘’just kids.’’ What follows is both a poignant requiem (Mapplethorpe died of AIDS at age 43) and a radiant celebration of life. Grade: A.”
— ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
” A story of art, identity, devotion, discovery, and love, the book is [Smith’s] first prose work...[it] conjures up the passionate collaboration--as lovers, friends, soul mates, and creators--that she and Mapplethorpe embarked on from the summer they met in Brooklyn in 1967.”
— ELLE
“[Smith] has great insight into the development of their creative processes, especially her evolution from writer to rock star, and [Mapplethorpe’s] from painter to shutterbug (not to mention from straight to gay).In the end, it’s not just an ode to Mapplethorpe, but a love letter to New York City’s ’70s art scene itself.”
— TIME OUT NEW YORK
“Deeply affecting...a vivid portrayal of a bygone New York that could support a countercultural artistic firmament...the power of this book comes from [Smith’s] ability to recall lucid memories in straightforward prose.”
— BOOKFORUM
“Funny, fascinating, oddly tender.”
— O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE
“Patti Smith’s memoir of her youth with Robert Mapplethorpe testifies to a rare and ferocious innocence...’Just Kids’ is a book utterly lacking in irony or sophisticated cynicism.”
— SALON.COM
“A shockingly beautiful book...a classic, a romance about becoming an artist in the city, written in a spare, simple style of boyhood memoirs like Frank Conroy’s ‘Stop Time.’”
— NEW YORK MAGAZINE
“[Patti Smith] managed to make garage rock both literary and iconic. More than 30 years after its release, Horses still has the power to shock and inspire young musicians to express themselves with unbridled passion. Now she brings the same raw, lyrical quality to her first book of prose, Just Kids, out this month.
— CLIVE DAVIS, VANITY FAIR
“[A] beautifully crafted love letter to [Robert Mapplethorpe]...Smith transports readers to what seemed like halcyon days for art and artists in New York...[a] tender and tough memoir...[an] elegant eulogy.”
— PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (STARRED REVIEW)
“Riveting and exquisitely crafted.”
— KIRKUS REVIEWS (STARRED REVIEW)
“She was once our savage Rimbaud, but suffering has turned her into our St. John of the Cross, a mystic full of compassion.”
— EDMUND WHITE
“A heartwarming love story, a clear song of devotion from Smith to Mapplethorpe, pure and beautiful and fascinating in its own way...a delightful insight into [Smith and Mapplethorpe’s] shared experiences; and for aspiring artists in New York (or anywhere), it’s a ray of hope — a we-did-it-so-you-can-too.”
— FLAVORWIRE
“Captivating....a poignant requiem...and a radiant celebration of life. Grade: A.”
— ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
“More than 30 years after its release, Horses still has the power to shock and inspire young musicians to express themselves with unbridled passion. Now she brings the same raw, lyrical quality to her first book of prose.”
— CLIVE DAVIS, VANITY FAIR
“In the end, [JUST KIDS is] not just an ode to Mapplethorpe, but a love letter to New York City’s ‘70s art scene itself.”
— TIME OUT NEW YORK
“The most compelling memoir by a rock artist since Bob Dylan’s ‘Chronicles: Volume One,’ written with intimacy and grace....”
— CHICAGO TRIBUNE
“Astonishing on many levels, most notably for Smith’s lapidary prose....[JUST KIDS] is simply one of the best memoirs to be published in recent years: inspiring, sad, wise and beautifully written.”
— SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
“[JUST KIDS] is funny and sad but always exhilarating.”
— TAMPA TRIBUNE
“Terrifically evocative and splendidly titled...the most spellbinding and diverting portrait of funky-but-chic New York in the late ’60s and early ’70s that any alumnus has committed to print....This enchanting book is a reminder that not all youthful vainglory is silly; sometimes it’s preparation.”
— NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
“A touching tale of love and devotion.”
— ASSOCIATED PRESS
“JUST KIDS describes [Smith and Mapplethorpe’s] ascent with a forthright sweetness that will ring true to anyone who knows her work.”
— BLOOMBERG.COM
ISBN: 9780066211312; ISBN10: 006621131X; Imprint: Ecco ; On Sale: 1/19/2010; Format: Hardcover; Trimsize: 6 x 9; Pages: 304; $27.00; Ages: 18 and Up

Books by Patti Smith
Auguries of Innocence
Auguries of Innocence is the first book of poetry from Patti Smith in more than a decade.