tavis: good evening. from los angeles, i am tavis smiley. tonight, a conversation with icon that singer, songwriter patti smith. in the 1970's, she won a lot of acclaim for her poetry and music, including her seminal 1975 album, "forces." she has just released a critically acclaimed memoir about her relationship with photographer robert mapplethorpe. tonight, she opens up about the relationship and the times that she helped define more than 40 years ago. it we're glad you joined us. our conversation with patti smith, coming up right now. >> there are so many things that walmart is looking forward to doing, like helping people live better. but mostly, we're helping build stronger communities and relationships. because with your help, the best is yet to come.

>> nationwide insurance proudly supports "tavis smiley." tavis and nationwide, working to improve financial literacy and the economic empowerment that comes with it. >> ♪ nationwide is on your side ♪ >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. [captioning made possible by kcet public television] tavis: pleased to welcome patti smith to this program, the legendary singer, songwriter, and performer who has just released one of the most talked- about books of the year, "just kids," tracing her early days in

new york city and her special relationship with photographer robert mapplethorpe. it is an honor to have you on this program. >> thank you. tavis: first of all, put that picture up. i want you to tell me about this photo. it is are resting -- is arresting. it is gorgeous. >> robert and i met on september 1, 1967. this was our anniversary, september 1, 1969. we wanted to go to coney island for our anniversary. we both loved coney island. in the back, when i later saw the picture, i saw the words "heroes." i said it isn't that great? he said, patti, that's a sandwich. i was from south jersey and we called them hoagies.

we were walking down the boardwalk and was an old fellow who had a box camera and for a few dollars he took a picture and you walked around and came back. that picture documented a very happy day for robert and i. when i look at it now, it still makes me happy. tavis: you talk about the fact that at one point in your career, there was an attempt by the record industry to make you a harder edged version of cher. >> that was even before i signed with my record company. that was an earlier record company, in 1971, actually, that offered me quite a good deal, quite a lot of money if i went along with their image of me. i was not really interested in that. so in 1975, i signed with clive

davis, who had its own ideas about me, but he always had a weakness for artists and he let me be myself. tavis: that had banned and the hair has that kind of cher look. >> they wanted me to where a motorcycle jacket and sing rock- and-roll songs. in 1971, was not ready for that. i did that in my own time. tavis: i read a lot of books, and this is one of the most beautifully written -- >> thank you. tavis: you are a poet, obviously, but you're riding, there is a flow to it. -- your writing, there is a flow to it. >> it took a lot of hard work, but if one loves one subject, i only read about things i love in that book. i did not waste my things on time -- i did not waste my time

on things i did not love. i loved new york city at the time, i loved robert, the people around us. i think when you have love and magic propelling you, it is helpful, but there was also a lot of hard work. tavis: that is public. love, magic. if i love the vocabulary that you speak. it is beautiful. -- i love the vocabulary that speak. it is beautiful. for those who did not know who robert was, one, tell me, and i want you to tell us why there is something for us to learn from, wrestle with about your relationship. first, tell me about robert. >> robert was one of these people that has a god-given gift. he was born an artist, and even when we met at 20, his abilities were fully formed. he is an artist. that is as simple as the word i

could be used to describe robert -- that is the simplest word i could use to describe robert. not a photographer, all of the different adjectives can be distilled down to say that he is a true artist. what i am hoping that the book will do, not one, i promised robert -- one, i promised robert i would write the book. the day before he died, i promised him i would write our story. i wrote it for robert, but i also wrote it for the reader. sometimes when you write poetry or are doing something obscure, you are not so concerned with the listener or the reader. i was really hoping that this boat -- that this book might inspire people, give them hope. it is about two young people who started with nothing, believed in each other. all of the evolution robert had to go through, his late

awakening of homosexuality and how we had to deal with that as lovers and friends, and creating without money, struggling, not having enough to eat. i am just hoping that it will be helpful to new generations, and maybe nice memories bring out a nice memories for older generations. tavis: you answered both questions in one that explanation, thank you. tell me how you navigate id the nature of their relationship. he started as friends, you become lovers, he discovers he is homosexual. tell me about that. >> we started almost immediately as boyfriend and girlfriend. in 1967, we work 20-year-old, we did not use the term "lovers."

he was my boyfriend and we had a classic, traditional relationship, physically and emotionally. we were together. but after about a year-and-a- half or a year, and the feelings robert had about this nature he had either suppressed because he was a catholic boy, altar boy, he was in rotc, his father was a military man, and in the early 1960's, even the mid-1960s, people were still keeping their persuasions hidden. it just got to the point where he could not hide it or suppress it anymore, but he really did not want us to break up. we were really happy with one another. because they certain amount of pain.

we had our normal -- it was not a thing where we were fighting are yelling with each other, it was pain. we sat and cried with each other many times, and he even, to his credit, in 1969, after exploring all aspects of his desires, he really wanted us to try again. and we tried again for almost a year. but he was who he was. his nature was what it was. but we had something so beautiful worth saving, you know, the physical/-- the physical aspect of the relationship was beautiful, but we had something that was so much more enduring that i still have. without his physical presence, i still feel the confidence he gave me, the love that he had for me, the things that i

learned about myself and being an artist. i still maintain those. so it took us awhile and it took us a lot of mutual help. we helped each other to ride these things, but the fact of the matter was we had a lot to save, much more than a physical relationship . and tavis: that is where the book, for me, became interesting to me. i'm trying to imagine how i would feel a relationship with a woman that i actually -- absolutely adored and loved and discovered that she was a lesbian and was leaving me for another woman. i put myself in this situation reading the book. how would i have handled that? and here you are to this day, he is gone, and you still love this man. >> oh, yeah, but the thing is

that one cannot forget that i was not the only person that suffered. sometimes i think that robert, it was more painful for robert. you know, of course it was freeing for him to be able to express his deeper nature, and i am sure that was -- he blossomed because of it, but believe me, he suffered as much as i did. it was not a simple thing. and we were also quite young. again, because we had such a deep commune as artists and people that helped each other if all this human beings, we were able to surmount it. if we had not had that, we had -- we would have totally gone our separate ways. tavis: in the book to talk about

how you and robert founder confidence, and there was a beautiful phrase i have been holding onto since i discovered it, and it is that each of us has to dig down, down, down, and find the confident part. >> yes. tavis: tell me more about that. >> i have always loved art. i have always felt a certain sense of myself. but i was skinny. i grew up in rural south jersey. i had bad skin, greasy braids, i was not real popular with the boys, and i was not a prodigy. robert was a gifted draftsman, very gifted. i struggled with my poems, i struggled with my drawing. i sort of was self-conscious. and robert, he was shy and

sometimes inarticulate, but he did not lack confidence. robert would not rest until he infused his confidence that he had in himself in me. and his belief in himself was so unshakable, and he equated his belief in the equally. so it sounds alchemical are something, but eventually, he was successful in making me feel like i was really worth something, that i was not -- being a muse is beautiful, but he accepted me as both muse and maker. that confidence that he instilled in me at 20 years old, i have never lost it. i have had tragedy in my life, i have not wanted to get out of bed, have gone through a lot of difficult things, but i have never lost the confidence that

he instilled in me, and it is right now blossoming. tavis: let me take the inverse of that, that there are days that even felt like not getting out of bed. what is fascinating about your confession, paraphrasing, the date is not complete for you unless you create something. -- the day is not complete for you, she creates something. if you have to see something that you completed that day. unpacked at . -- unpack that. >> i have made a vow with myself. i have to do something every day to prove my worth, because even though i have worked in a factory, bookstores, certainly labored as a mother, i don't tend to gravitate towards those tasks. i feel that every day i have to show some human worth, something

that i have done. if i am i doing something politically or to help my fellow man, at least i have written a good sentence, i have taken an interest in photograph, that this gift i feel i have been given -- i believe gives our god-given. however you want to express god, whether it is nature or metaphysical, it is special, and it has to be exercised, nourished. i just always tried to write a paragraph or work on the book or take a picture, or least express something that says i was alive today. i always think of this jimi hendrix line, which i love, i forget which saw it is, he starts out -- ♪ the way i wake from yesterday ♪ i feel like that every morning, great, i have another day to experience something.

i am going to see "alice-in- wonderland," i am going to read another book, experience something wonderful. tavis: i always say another chance to get it right. you mentioned god, when you say that each of us has the capacity to animate god, what you mean by that? >> i believe that all of us have a creative impulse. of course, sorry, but i have maybe a snobby attitude, but i believe that being a true poet or an artist, a true artist, is a special, a god-given thing, but that does not mean that the creative impulse is just there for artists and poets. it is there for every man. how wheat animate it is up to us. we all have it, whether in his

nature, god, with everyone to call it. that is why i love rock-and-roll so much. rock-and-roll is the one of art that america has given the world where is a people's art. it is really so accessible to everyone, to write a song, felix, express themselves, -- write a song, feel it, express themselves. tavis: there was a point in your career, i think around the time with springsteen, but there was a point in your career where your fans thought you had sold out. and you basically said to them, i am not selling out, punk rock, if anything, is just another word, another phrase for

freedom. when i saw that, i wondered whether you meant that specifically about punk rock, or is music, any kind of music, another form of freedom? >> it applies to everything, but i was saying specifically, because some people, because i had success with the songs that i worked with when i worked with bruce, people would say, you sold out or something like that, and i thought that was so stupid. i was the same person working on that song and singing that song is an the other song. i was specifically reacting to them saying that song is not punk rock. to me, pop rock is a state of mind, but it is also -- to me, punk rock is a state of mind, but it is also just a phrase. i did not like to be tagged with any phrase. i am a worker and i will do what

i want, not without conscious and not without a sense of responsibility, but i am going to do the work that i want to do, the way that i see fit. tavis: that is why i like you. i am trying to intimate that in my own life. -- i am trying to animate that in my own life. when did you really feel like you were moving at a pace that you wanted to move that, where your music is concerned? robert tease you about the fact that he became famous -- that you became famous first. >> i am not a musician, i am a performer. in the course of performing, i have learned how to sing and i have a pretty good ear, but i don't call myself a musician. i did not really have any real goals in terms of being a musician.

my goals were really sort of aesthetically political. what i wanted to do was merge poetry with rock-and-roll in the way that jimi hendrix or jim morrison or bob dylan had. i wanted to continue that tradition, but also, we were in a time where i felt that rock- and-roll was a cultural voice being taken over by mobil, which rock stars, the idea of celebrity, and i wanted to help remind people that rock-and-roll is our cultural voice, belonged to the people, and that we all could animate that aspect of ourselves. so i felt that i had achieved that already, and then i thought, well, that is it, i did my record. clive davis had offered me more

records, and he believed in what i was doing, and i wound up doing a few more. but certainly by easter, i had accomplished what robert really wanted for me, which was to have a hit record. robert was joking that i got a little famous before him. he certainly caught up with me, but i was so happy for him really because he wanted that for me. i felt that i had, by band and i had created a certain amount of space for the new guard, and that directly i had presented songs that i hope would be freeing, would give people things to think about, and so between "horses" and easter, i felt i did my job. tavis: i suspect, with all due

respect to any artist that comes on this program or will come on this program, every song writer thinks of themselves of as a poet -- things of themselves as a poet of sorts. we have celebrated you for it this all these years later, but what is the difference between marrying your poetry with music? >> i think that working with people, especially richard saul and lenny k, all of the people i work with, was building and keeping and maintaining a sense of improvisation. right from the start, we started working with 3 quarts, -- 3 chords, a little rhythm, and language. "horses" was improvised in the studio, the other albums were

improvised in the studio, and i have maintained that right from the beginning to the last record, "trampings," which has a five minute improvisation on radio baghdad, improvised in the studio. i think that is much more credit to my people who are willing to go anywhere with me, and also people who have given me the opportunity to make records thee this that are not structured -- who give me the space to present songs like this that are not structured. they are not smokey robinson's songs. god bless smokey robinson, i don't have his gift. but i have the ability to riff for quite some time and to go out there and hopefully speak to

god a little bit and come back and give it to the people. and i think that is what i and my musicians have done. tavis: there you go with the poetry again. there are few publishers left along the way in trying to get this thing out. the lesson for you that this is out now, it came when it was supposed to come, the lesson to you and that is what on this journey? >> i don't know what lesson, it is just the truth. robert asked me to do this 20 years ago, and just feet and design, whenever, my own difficulties -- and just fate and design, whatever, my own difficulties, we have brought it out now and people are welcoming it and it makes me happy. tavis: it is a wonderful read. i have never read anything more

beautiful. the new book is called "just kids," by patti smith. it is an honor to have you on the program. that is so nice to talk to you. i am so happy. tavis: we're both happy. i hope that you are happy at home. catch me on the weekend on public radio international. i will see you next time on pbs. until next time, good night from allied. thank you for watching, and as always, keep the faith. -- until next time, good night from l.a., thank you for watching, and as always keep the faith. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley on pbs.org. tavis: join me next time for our conversation with richard schiff. that is next time. we will see you then. >> there are so many things that walmart is looking forward to doing, like helping people live better. but mostly, we're helping build stronger communities and relationships.

because with your help, the best is yet to come. >> nationwide insurance proudly supports "tavis smiley." tavis and nationwide, working to improve financial literacy and the economic empowerment that comes with it. >> ♪ nationwide >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. [captioning made possible by kcet public television] captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org--