tamaranth | 2026/029: Bread of Angels

2026/029: Bread of Angels — Patti Smith

How can we leap back up? Get back on our feet, grab a cart, and start gathering the debris, both physical and emotional. Crush it into small stones, then pulverize them and as the dust settles, dance upon it. How do we do that? By returning to our child self, weathering our obstacles in good faith. For children operate in the perpetual present, they go on, rebuild their castles, lay down their casts and crutches, and walk again. [loc. 2494]

Another memoir from Patti Smith, author of Just Kids and M Train (the latter of which I have not read). Bread of Angels (the title refers to 'unpremeditated gestures of kindness') covers Smith's childhood, her years as a pioneering punk artist, and her 'walking away' from success to have a real life, marrying Fred 'Sonic' Smith and having children. That period is mostly elided: 'Our life was obscure, perhaps not so interesting to some, but for us it was a whole life' and later, 'The trials and challenges that Fred and I suffered were our own'.

Then came a catastrophic period when she lost several of the men close to her -- Robert Mapplethorpe, Richard Sohl, Fred, and her own brother Todd. This sparked her return to music, and recording, after an absence of 15 years. Further touring, and another series of deaths, revelations and reunions: and travel, and touring. I saw her on the tour commemmorating the 50th anniversary of Horses ('bred in an innocent time and we did our best to now deliver it infused with experience') and she was marvellous -- exactly as I'd expected.

There are many, often abrupt, shifts of tone and language in Bread of Angels: from simple accounts of her childhood and family life to exuberant evocations of performance ('my whining Fender Duo-Sonic drew altruistic swords with the mournful wailings of Lenny’s Stratocaster, Richard Sohl introduced an unexpected melodic shift creating the melancholic beauty of Abyssinia'). Sometimes you can hear the voice of the woman who wrote the lyrics to 'Horses': sometimes she's talking about the boat in their back yard (I can sympathise!) or the beauties of the natural world, the 'many tongues of nature... the language of trees, and the clay of the Earth'.

A fascinating read: I'm now more inclined to read M Train, which apparently focusses more on her life with, and grief for, Fred.