Patti's Muse

"Inspiration is the unforeseen quantity, the muse that assails at the hidden hour. The arrows fly and one is unaware of being struck, and that a host of unrelated catalysts have joined clandestinely to form a system of its own, rendering one with the vibrations of an incurable disease— a burning imagination—at once unholy and divine. What is to be done with the resulting impulses, these nerve endings flickering like an illuminated map of thieving constellations? The stars pulse. The muse seeks to be vivified . But the mind is also the muse. It seeks to outsmart its glorious opponents, to rewire such sources of inspiration. A crystal stream suddenly dried. A thing of beauty joyless, defiled . Why does the creative spirit turn on itself? Why does the maker twist all drama? The pen is lifted, guided by the shattered muse. Without discord, it marks, harmony passes unnoticed, without discord, it continues, Abel is rendered no more than a forgotten shepherd." -- Patti Smith

"The postscript produces a grudging admiration for the earnestness of its affect and the purity of its faith in writing. Smith's open and authentic enthusiasm for her literary idols — Rimbaud, Camus, Blake — has always been an endearing part of her persona; here, she elevates an encounter with Camus' last manuscript into "a call to action . . . to write something fine, that would be better than I am." Or, as the book's final lines have it: "Why do we write? A chorus erupts. Because we cannot simply live." -- Michael Lindgren

Patricia Lee Smith is an American singer-songwriter, poet, and visual artist who became an influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album Horses. Her mother was a Jehovah's Witness. Patti had a strong religious upbringing and a Bible education, but left organized religion as a teenager because she felt it was too confining; much later, she wrote the line "Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine" in her cover version of Them's "Gloria" in response to this experience. She has described having an avid interest in Tibetan Buddhism around the age of eleven or twelve, saying "I fell in love with Tibet because their essential mission was to keep a continual stream of prayer," but that as an adult she sees clear parallels between different forms of religion, and has come to the conclusion that religious dogmas are "... man-made laws that you can either decide to abide by or not."