Patti Smith: Smithposium

BOA lightening Round

Patti Smith — Sun, 08 Feb 2026 20:52:41 GMT

I will be back soon reading Oscar Wilde. Stay strong and optimistic.

Cleaned my desk

Another BOA

Patti Smith — Sat, 31 Jan 2026 01:51:51 GMT

Hello everyone. More thoughts on your questions as there are never totally clear answers. I welcome more questions that will certainly inspire new reflections. Also sorry for all the umms, I seem to be in a dreamier state than I realized. Perhaps it’s do to the chosen card. Rest healing contemplation….

Light hearted observations

Patti Smith — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 02:16:03 GMT

my view from the hotel as I wrote.

A recap and a twice told tale

Patti Smith — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 01:19:02 GMT

Part Peter Pan and part Little Lulu…..

Yes. My mother cut my hair. Please send rebel hump comments and questions. I will be back soon. Hopefully with new glasses…

BOA 1

Patti Smith — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 14:03:07 GMT

Here is my question. Was this useful for you? Do you think this format will work?

Daumal 5

Patti Smith — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 23:24:54 GMT

My Daumal a gift from Julian

Look at the face of this man. Regard his suffering. It is a beautiful photograph, one not accessible when I was young. The last photograph of the poet mountaineer taken by his dear friend, Luc Dietrich, on Sunday, May 14, 1944, a week before his death. One can see his mother’s Mongolian face, slightly slanted eyes, dark and w…

Daumal 4

Patti Smith — Tue, 24 Jun 2025 22:26:20 GMT

Daumal 3

Patti Smith — Mon, 23 Jun 2025 20:09:04 GMT

Rene Daumal was born March 16, 1908, in the small town of Boulzicourt, near the Ardennes Mountains, as Rimbaud before him. I have stood on the street of his childhood. One can envision his mother waiting by the door for the milk to be delivered from a horse cart. There, walking hand in hand, is young Rene and his paternal grandfather; a beekeeper, heale…

Daumal

Patti Smith — Sun, 22 Jun 2025 17:03:45 GMT

My drawing: encountering the rat

Part 2

As the narrator of Mount Analogue Rene Daumal took the name Theodore, which means the giver, and blessed us with a story resonating our purist aspirations, those we had once known when we were child mountaineers trudging shining peaks.

Mount Analogue. Such a marvelous book, a tale told before sleep, taking so long b…

Rene Daumal

Patti Smith — Sat, 21 Jun 2025 21:15:05 GMT

Daumal, days before he died.

In the waning years of World War II, Rene Daumal, post Surrealist upstart, poet-mountaineer, suffered consumption of the lungs. No longer able to climb, he created a mountain of his own. An allegorical mountain, where ascent and descent are at once material and immaterial. In the realm of the tolling heart the pealing is also…

Salute him when his birthday comes

Patti Smith — Sat, 31 May 2025 15:45:21 GMT

Today is Walt Whitman’s birthday. I was reminded of this by reading Substack entry today. It’s a wonderful post, informative and personal. It also reminded me of the many tributes and poems written for him, just as he had written for others. Above I am reading Fernando Pessoa’s deeply touching poem to Whitman and below is Allen reading A Supermarket in California, to his beloved mentor. I love seeing Allen in his place on the lower east side, a place visited by many aspiring poets who would one day honor him with their own poems. Poets heralding poets.

It’s a good day to revisit the poems of Whitman, and perhaps stop by for an interesting connection between Whitman and Ralph Waldo Emerson, one that I wasn’t aware of. The Whitman effect is far reaching. It was Whitman who Bob Dylan referenced in his song I contain Multitudes. Walt wrote these lines in Song of Myself:

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

Yes, Whitman was at times large, at times humble. A whole spectrum of selves captured in Leaves of Grass, cherished by Ginsberg, Pessoa and Jesse and those who celebrate poetry and hunger for absolute freedom.

Emily Bronte's birthday

Patti Smith — Thu, 19 Dec 2024 22:37:38 GMT

Emily by her brother Brandon

In West Yorkshire, in the village of Haworth, behind the parish church, stands the Brontë Parsonage Museum. Passing through the rooms, one may view the humble yet precious possessions of the Brontë family. Among these affecting treasures, in the corner of a glass case, is a white porcelain cup. It attracts the eye by the stre…

Death of Rimbaud

Patti Smith — Mon, 11 Nov 2024 02:18:34 GMT

Arthur Rimbaud had travelled over thirty-thousand miles. What he was truly seeking in those years only he knew. In August of 1880 he advanced toward East Africa, passing through Bab Elmandeb, the Gate of Tears. The punishing rigors of transitory life primed him for his most difficult journey. He had written of the abyss in A Season in Hell, and wo…

The serious and the not

Patti Smith — Sun, 21 Apr 2024 01:57:32 GMT

Hello everybody

Quite a grainy video but lo and behold not backwards. A few true colors of my childhood hero Gumby, and his fast friends. We are approaching the end of our Passenger M’s voyage. This is a longer piece and I have tried my best not to trip up.

Hoping all is well for you all….

Disko Bay, Greenland by Lynn Davis.

A smile and a wave from Gumby

The Solomon Islands

Patti Smith — Thu, 18 Apr 2024 00:56:42 GMT

Hello everybody,

I had a busy day today in Brooklyn and now back home. Here is this evenings installment of The Coral Sea. And a few illustrations of my day. And I just remembered, Frylock is the French fry guy.

I will return tomorrow, wishing you all a good night….

The Sluggard by Robert Mapplethorpe

Nicolas de Stahl.

Frylock, Meatwad and Shake

Monkeyshines

Patti Smith — Sun, 14 Apr 2024 23:14:24 GMT

Good evening everyone. A bit of happy rambling and the feverish thoughts of Passenger M. Below is my favorite Photo Booth picture of Robert.

Taken on 42nd street 1969

An afternoon visit

Patti Smith — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 18:33:45 GMT

Hello everybody,

It’s a rare afternoon visit, I am sending you a rose, an image of Robert Mapplethorpe.

Hope everyone has a good day. I will return soon, perhaps with a different jacket…

Rose in Smoke by ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE

light play goes dark

Patti Smith — Tue, 19 Mar 2024 00:56:56 GMT

This didn’t quite work out, fate was not with me today but I’m not to be beat by fate.

Below is the drawing room, perhaps I will see you there tomorrow….

The Coral Sea

Patti Smith — Sun, 10 Mar 2024 22:00:34 GMT

Hello everyone. Happy to introduce you to the Passenger M. I found an early draft of this piece. As I said I had no typewriter at the time and wrote exclusively by hand. I gazed at the photograph by Robert as though I could step within that mist. I will be back tomorrow. I am reading slowly as it has been a long time since I have read it.

Here M imagin…

The Coral Sea

Patti Smith — Sun, 10 Mar 2024 00:46:31 GMT

This is the first installment of The Coral Sea. Some words from Just Kids and the small prologue. Though only a paragraph, I remember how I labored over it, feeling him with me as I drew from all I knew of him, for the perfect words.

Morpheus the God of Dreams