At 75, the punk poet, singer, artist and author talks candidly about life, loss, loneliness and her acclaimed new photography project
It is mid-morning outside the Pompidou Centre in Paris and Patti Smith is talking to me on the phone – she is trying to puzzle out how best we are to find each other within the labyrinthine building: she is somewhere inside working on an exhibition, a sound and visual montage of three French poets: Arthur Rimbaud, Antonin Artaud and René Daumal.
At 75, she is the figurehead of American punk – her 1975 album, Horses, has often been selected as one of the top 100 albums of all time – and with each year that passes, she becomes more age-defyingly remarkable. She spent much of last year touring and continues to work as a poet and artist – her memoir, Just Kids, about her relationship with the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, won the 2010 US national book award.
8 January
‘As a young girl, I admired the skater’s attire, eventually adopting the look as my own. The plate belonged to my mother who always tried to make me wear bright colours. The skater won out. He dwells beside my copy of Ariel, given to me by Robert Mapplethorpe in 1968.’
