Our Sponsors:

Bio

Fans of Patti Smith know how important Allen Ginsberg was/is to her. As a performer, she owes much to both the incantory rhythms of Ginsberg and the jazz recitations of Jack Kerouac, which she combines with the ancient tradition of the shaman -- the tribal sorcerer who acts as a medium for the other world. In many interviews and prose pieces, she has listed Ginsberg -- along, of course, with Arthur Rimbaud, Jean Genet, and William S. Burroughs -- as an influence on her own poetry. See John Rockwell's review of Horses for a historical view of what Ginsberg contributed to Patti's early work. Another connection between Patti Smith and Allen Ginsberg in print is that Barry Miles, who would go on to write a 1989 biography of Ginsberg, interviewed Patti in 1977. As a friend in recent times, Ginsberg was supportive to Patti after the deaths of her husband Fred and brother Todd in the fall of '94. As documented here nearly the first (if not the first) time she appeared on stage after those tragedies, was when she did a reading with Ginsberg in Ann Arbor, in early '95. Again in Ann Arbor, in April '96, they appeared together at a benefit for Jewel Heart (Tibetan Buddhist organization), where Ginsberg gave Patti a memorable introduction and read several of his own poems. Ginsberg has also showed up in the audience for several of her performances of the last couple of years, and has performed, among other things, his "Ballad of the Skeletons" on stage in appearances with Patti. They last performed on stage together at the Tibetan New Year's benefit at Carnegie Hall in February '97.