Patti on Rimbaud

[L French <lrfrench>]

PATTI SMITH on ARTHUR RIMBAUD (b. October 20, 1854) 
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Mummers ask for nothing in return. They give a sign to sign.  
Then they're gone. I  project from the urinal to Marseilles that 
you gave glory and they just tossed it away into the river--a 
discarded wreath where rats sit, using it for a nest.
A. Rimbaud, the rats' poet laureate. 
 
--From "Mummer Love" in Auguries of Innocence  
 
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Q: When did you first discover Arthur Rimbaud? 

 

PATTI SMITH: I was 16 and I was at the bus stop and there was this little stall where they sold cheap used books. Im looking at them, because sometimes I would find something interesting. I discovered Jean Genet there, I found William Burroughs there. And one day I found Illuminations. The first thing that I was attracted too was his face, because he had such a beautiful face. But then when I opened up the book and read, even in translation, I was so moved by the language that I had to have this book. So immediately I was drawn to both his image and his language. His face drew me but his language kept me there. But I can really say that it was his work that was the most important to me and his work that I still treasure. Then the life and his lifestyle come second or third to that.  

 

Q: What was it about his lifestyle that attracted you to Rimbaud? 

 

PATTI SMITH: There were all kinds of things. His attitude, his manner of dress, his spirit and his rebelliousness, but also most importantly just the beauty and intelligence and the intricacy of his work.  

 

Q: Would you say Rimbaud was a sort of Godfather to rock and roll artists? 

 

PATTI SMITH: I know that Jim Morrison admired Rimbaud. I know Bob Dylan admired Rimbaud. I remember Bob and I sitting on a step around 1975 and we were being filmed and I had a picture of Rimbaud in my pocket and I took it out and showed it to him, and we were both looking at him together and we didnt say anything but I felt our minds, just both of us were so moved in our youth and throughout our life by him. 

 

Q: Why do you think Rimbaud is so appreciated in our time? 

 

PATTI SMITH: What better time? And look at his time. He wasnt appreciated. He was unappreciated. He went to Paris and all the people hated him. He put a little knife or something up to a photographer and burned all the negatives. And the other poets felt he was irreverent. It wasnt like he was the toast of the town in Paris. He had one of the greatest masterpieces in French literaturehe brings back A Season in Hell to Paris and he doesnt get any real feedback. His kind of arrogance was not appreciated at all. He was messy, he was dirty he was whatever he was. 

 

Q: Although Rimbaud stopped writing he never stopped being a poet. 

 

PATTI SMITH: And in the last months of his life, they say that when he was very ill, when he was hallucinating and things, or just had a fever he would be speaking in such a poetical language that the children would peek up in the windows and listen to this strange person singing and chanting and speaking. If we could have only taped him imagine the marvels that came from his mouth. 

 

Q: Did you ever find yourself losing interest or think maybe youve outgrown Rimbaud? 

 

PATTI SMITH: I still read him all the time, because I have never been disappointed and I have never outgrown him. I can read "Deserts of Love" just like I listen to John Coltrane records or I listen to Beethoven or Maria Callas. I didn't outgrow Maria Callas and I haven't outgrown Jimi Hendrix and I haven't outgrown Rimbaud. Or I haven't outgrown Picasso's Guernica. Because they all stand as great enduring art that continuously reveal new things. And Rimbaud isnt just for the young or the really cool looking. For someone who had such an interesting life, he was truly a great poet. He was born a poet, it was his calling, and it was a gift. He had a comprehension of language and languages. 

 

Q: Your poetry readings in the early seventies were titled Rock n Rimbaud. Did you look on Rimbaud as a precursor of todays modern rock and roll musicians? 

 

PATTI SMITH: Well, when Rimbaud was a young man, a very young man, I think he would have been a great guitar player. I could imagine him that way, because of the way he saw language. Can you imagine, having written the poem Vowels, he imagined colors for the vowels. So I believe if he were to have plugged in an electric guitar, he would have found sounds for those vowels. He did work on piano, he was very good at mathematics he had such an interesting mind. I believe if he had lived a long life, it's very possible he might have composed, been like Mozart. I think that with the mind that he possessed, if he had lived a different life, he could have really done anything.  

 
Q: Have you visited Rimbuad's grave in Charleville? 
 
PATTI SMITH: Yes, I found his grave and I visited his grave. I cleaned it up because it was very overgrown. I sat there for a long time and visited him. And it was very nice because a friend bought me these very old trade beads from Harar, from the very town that he'd lived in (in Abyssinia). And these trade beadswhich he used to sellI mean he sold guns and he sold trade beads and he sold all these things, so they were very typical of the type he would have traded. So she gave me a couple of these trade beads, and I took them with me (to his grave) and no one was there, it was raining, the dirt was wet. So I dug and dug and dug. So I gave him something at his resting place, from Abyssinia. 
 
 
>From a March, 2004 interview on Belgium radio
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http://www.pattismith.net/downthroughtheages/index.html
 

		
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