Punk’s Poet Laureate

“We gathered our colored pencils and sheets of paper and drew like wild, feral children into the night, until, exhausted, we fell into bed,” writes Patti Smith in her memoir Just Kids, chronicling her life with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. They were the perfect punk-bohemian power couple, and they lived a...

By Amanda McCorquodale

November 18, 2010

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“We gathered our colored pencils and sheets of paper and drew like wild, feral children into the night, until, exhausted, we fell into bed,” writes Patti Smith in her memoir Just Kids, chronicling her life with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. They were the perfect punk-bohemian power couple, and they lived a downtown-flavored symbiosis, holed up in the infamous Chelsea Hotel. Their bliss was cut short, however, Smith soon losing Mapplethorpe to Andy Warhol, whom she did not like (“I hated the soup and felt little for the can”) and then to AIDS in 1989.

But the surrounding cast is just as alluring as the duo’s love story. Smith tells of casual encounters with Salvador Dali, Sam Shepard, and Allen Ginsberg, who might have flirted a little after mistaking her for a boy. See punk’s poet laureate Friday at 8 p.m. at the Miami Book Fair in Chapman Conference Center (Building 3, Second Floor, Room 3210) at Miami Dade College’s Wolfson Campus (300 NE Second Ave., Miami). Tickets cost $10. Call 305-237-3258, or visit miamibookfair.com.
Fri., Nov. 19, 8 p.m., 2010

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