Patti Smith, The Godmother of Punk, Is Now Putting Her Pictures on Instagram

This is my Land 250 Polaroid cam­era. These days many images are lost as the film is often expired, being obso­lete, but I had a good run. Its the end of the day but not too late to salute JM Bar­rie on his birthday.Barrie was a sick­ly child and only grew to 5 foot 3, and yet pro­duced a mon­u­men­tal work in Peter Pan. Pic­tured is a polaroid of the won­der­ful stat­ue in Kens­ing­ton Gar­dens where I have spent many hours day­dream­ing, a pas­time that is nev­er lost, nev­er obso­lete.

A post shared by This is Pat­ti Smith (@thisispattismith) on May 9, 2018 at 3:24pm PDT

As evi­denced by her Insta­gram feed the God­moth­er is just like you and me. She posts pic­tures of her kids.

This is my daugh­ter Jesse with the great Eric Bur­don. Sat­ur­day we attend­ed his 77th birth­day con­cert at the City Win­ery. It was a spec­tral per­for­mance from the emo­tion­al Lead­bel­ly song In the Pines, to Spill the Wine, to the Ani­mals great­est songs. I found myself in tears even when danc­ing. His was the voice of dis­en­fran­chised youth, tran­si­tion and the desire for a bet­ter world. As he sang I closed my eyes, trans­port­ed to anoth­er time when we were of the tribe of the mis­un­der­stood search­ing for uni­ver­sal love.

A post shared by This is Pat­ti Smith (@thisispattismith) on May 12, 2018 at 3:22pm PDT

She gives her mom a Moth­ers Day shout out…

This is my moth­er. She gave me life. And I can only give her a life­time of grat­i­tude.

A post shared by This is Pat­ti Smith (@thisispattismith) on May 13, 2018 at 7:48am PDT

She cel­e­brates her friends’ birth­days, posts self­ies, trav­el shots, and pet pics…

This is a Ken Regan shot from 1975. Just reliv­ing one of the thou­sand things to thank Bob Dylan for. The poet­ry, the social aware­ness, the elec­tric ener­gy, the best dark glass­es, and here a moment of shared laugh­ter. One of life’s great­est plea­sures. So hap­py birth­day Bob Dylan, I am cer­tain peo­ple all over the world are lis­ten­ing to you tonight.

A post shared by This is Pat­ti Smith (@thisispattismith) on May 24, 2018 at 12:55pm PDT

She’s not above self-pro­mo­tion if the sit­u­a­tion war­rants.

But the accom­pa­ny­ing cap­tions set punk’s poet lau­re­ate apart. No LOLs here.  It’s clear that the award-win­ning author of Just Kids  and M Train thinks about her con­tent, care­ful­ly craft­ing each post before she pub­lish­es. Each is a bite-sized reflec­tion, a page-a-day med­i­ta­tion on what it means to be alive:

This is day two of my Venice report.

I bummed around think­ing of 

Venice in the sev­en­ties. It had

a strong Ras­ta vibe with Reg­gae

music drift­ing from the head shops

and boom box­es on the beach. 

Burn­ing Spear and Jim­my Cliff

and Bob Mar­ley. Venice has an 

ever chang­ing atmos­phere but 

I always like walk­ing around, 

anony­mous, just anoth­er freak. 

On Pacif­ic next to the Cafe Col­lage

I had steamed dumplings and 

gin­ger tea at Mao’s Kitchen. 

The food is great and rea­son­able.

Because it was ear­ly it was 

near­ly emp­ty. Since I was awake

since 4am i was near­ly hyp­no­tized 

by the turn­ing of their over­head 

fan. Before I left they gave me a

for­tune cook­ie. It was a true one.

Reflect­ing my past and cer­tain­ly 

my future. A very good day.

Fol­low Pat­ti Smith on Insta­gram here.

via W Mag­a­zine

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Pat­ti Smith’s 40 Favorite Books

Pat­ti Smith Cre­ates a Detailed Pack­ing List for Going on Tour: Haru­ki Muraka­mi Books, Loquat Tea & More

Hear Pat­ti Smith Read the Poet­ry that Would Become Hors­es: A Read­ing of 14 Poems at Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty, 1975

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Her solo show Nurse!, in which one of Shakespeare’s best loved female char­ac­ters hits the lec­ture cir­cuit to set the record straight pre­mieres in June at The Tank in New York City. Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.