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Patti Smith reads from her book \u201cM Train\u201d during the Miami Book Fair in November 2015. She returns to Miami on Friday, Oct. 9 for an evening of songs and stories inspired by her new book \u201cBread of Angels\u201d at the Adrienne Arsht Center. (Photo by Carl Juste\/courtesy of Miami Herald)<\/p>\n
Patti Smith didn\u2019t intend to continue her song and book tour for her memoir release, \u201cBread of Angels.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI was finished, and then they proposed this one,\u201d she says. \u201cI was excited to come to Miami.\u201d<\/p>\n
The invitation offered a chance to sing and tell stories in the Adrienne Arsht Center\u2019s Ziff Ballet Opera House. It was a setting she said she couldn\u2019t pass up.<\/p>\n
\u201cAn Evening of Songs and Stories with Patti Smith\u201d is at 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 9, co-presented by the Arsht Center, Books & Books and Miami Book Fair.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been doing this in all kinds of halls, old theaters, but to play it in a theater like the Ziff. I couldn\u2019t even believe we were asked to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Patti Smith in 1995 from the book \u201cBread of Angels.\u201d (Photo courtesy Penguin Random House)<\/p>\n
Smith emerged from New York\u2019s early punk rock scene with her 1975 debut album \u201cHorses\u201d and has since released 10 more studio albums. The singer, songwriter and poet has also built a celebrated literary career. She won the 2010 National Book Award for nonfiction for \u201cJust Kids,\u201d about her relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and their beginnings as artists in New York.<\/p>\n
In a telephone interview from her home in New York, the conversation, much like her new book, is laced with memories.<\/p>\n
Memories of Miami<\/p>\n
There was the night in 1978 when she shared a bill with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers at the Miami Jai Alai Fronton, a performance that she continued even after the power was cut.<\/p>\n
She and her band were the headliners, and Petty was the opening act. \u201cYes, I do remember,\u201d she says when asked about the show. \u201cHe went on longer than he was supposed to and they had some electrical problem while he was playing. Then he complained he had gotten an electrical shock.\u201d<\/p>\n
When his set ran long, her performance went past the venue\u2019s midnight cutoff. After they pulled the power to shut the concert down, the defiant performer stayed onstage, shouting the words to the Who\u2019s \u201cMy Generation.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBy the time that we got on, we were late, and that\u2019s what happened,\u201d she says. \u201cI was a little pissed off, but I had also been out of action for several months after an accident, so I was feisty.\u201d<\/p>\n
The accident was during a concert in Tampa in 1977 when she was opening for Bob Seger. She tripped over a monitor and fell from the stage onto a concrete floor leaving her with serious injuries \u2013 fractured vertebrae in her neck.<\/p>\n
Other visits to Florida were calmer and became part of the life she shared with her husband, Fred \u201cSonic\u201d Smith of the pioneering rock band MC5.<\/p>\n
After they married in 1980, their honeymoon was planned for the Florida Keys, she recalls, but a frightening flight through lightning and thunderstorms delayed their arrival. They landed hours later than expected. \u201cWe wound up driving half the night.\u201d<\/p>\n
In her book \u201cM Train,\u201d she talks about a two-night Miami stop for their first anniversary. She writes: \u201cWe ate red beans and yellow rice in Little Havana and visited Crocodile World.\u201d<\/p>\n
Florida became an annual road trip destination from their home in Michigan, she says, with visits to Miami, Daytona Beach, Jacksonville, St. Augustine, and the historic Black beach community American Beach.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would drive all the way from Detroit,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
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Patti Smith spent about 10 years writing \u201cBread of Angels,\u201d which was published Nov. 4, 2025. The children on the paperback cover are her son Jackson and her niece Simone. Smith was pregnant with daughter Jesse at the time. Photographer T.E. Denton took the picture on Seabrook Island, South Carolina, in 1987. (Photo courtesy of Penguin Random House)<\/p>\n
A Reason for A New Book<\/p>\n
That life with Fred is one of the reasons Smith decided to write \u201cBread of Angels.\u201d She hadn\u2019t intended to write another work of nonfiction. \u201cJust Kids\u201d grew out of a promise she made to Mapplethorpe shortly before his death.<\/p>\n
\u201cI swore to him that I would write it, and that was a great labor of love,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
But for years, she says, she harbored frustration from unauthorized biographies and speculation about her marriage during the 15 years she and Fred spent in Detroit, where he had grown up and built his music career with MC5. He died at the age of 44 in 1994 of heart failure.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy life has been pretty amazing,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019ve gone through many challenges, and there\u2019s no reason to throw one\u2019s \u2026 fantasy about what I was doing at any particular time, or what my husband and I were doing at any particular time, or my children.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also wanted to address the assumption that stepping away from public life meant they had stopped working.<\/p>\n
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Patti Smith with her husband, Fred \u201cSonic\u201d Smith, in Detroit. (Photo courtesy Penguin Random House)<\/p>\n
\u201cFred and I did all kinds of things. We studied. He became a pilot. I studied all kinds of things,\u201d she says. \u201cI had two children. We had a life.\u201d<\/p>\n
As she wrote, the book also became a way to thank the people who shaped her. \u201cThe principal thing I believe is gratitude,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Writing remains what Smith calls her \u201cmost beloved vocation.\u201d She begins by hand, filling notebooks that preserve something a computer cannot.<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes the writing will get very hurried or rushed, or it will take a certain shape because it\u2019s following your adrenaline or your mind,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Her longtime assistant transcribes the notebooks. \u201cWe have worked together for 50 years. She used to be my guitar roadie. She knows my handwriting so well. The creative energy is always done by hand,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Songs, Stories, and a Birthday Salute<\/p>\n
For the Miami evening, those written passages will become part of a conversation with music. Tony Shanahan, her bass player and pianist, gives her the flexibility to choose songs that correspond with a reading or a memory, she says. A selection might be one of her own songs, or \u201csomething by Bob Dylan or Neil Young.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSometimes I don\u2019t even read; I\u2019ll just tell a story, and other times I\u2019ll read how the story is written in the book,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause the Night,\u201d the hit song she co-wrote with Bruce Springsteen, is one example. She can tell the story of how they wrote it, then perform it with Shanahan.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole night, everything is interconnected,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
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Patti Smith and Fred \u201cSonic\u201d Smith perform at the Palladium in New York in 1979. (Photo courtesy of Penguin Random House)<\/p>\n
The date at the Arsht offers another connection. Her recent Milwaukee appearance fell on John Coltrane\u2019s 100th birthday, Sept. 23. Now the Miami event falls on John Lennon\u2019s birthday, Oct. 9.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to think of some way to salute John Lennon as well,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Although just two performers will be onstage, she says the evenings have the liveliness of a concert. There is room for audiences to sing along, and for stories that move through very different emotions.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome stories are funny, others \u2026 are more poignant or even heartbreaking,\u201d she says. \u201cThere\u2019s a nice range of emotion.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chasing The Perfect Prose<\/p>\n
Smith, who turns 80 in December, is already in the editing stages of her next book,\u00a0 \u201cThe Melting.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is the third in a series of interconnected books that includes \u201cM Train\u201d and \u201cYear of the Monkey.\u201d She describes it as autofiction, with herself as the central character and a story that draws on real facts about climate change.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the same character as always, me,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
After the responsibility of recounting her life in \u201cBread of Angels,\u201d returning to fiction brings a sense of freedom.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m back on my horse, you know, riding through, you know, fantasy land,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m free to write whatever I want.\u201d<\/p>\n
Throughout the conversation, she recounts writing assignments and moving easily between literature and music. \u00a0She mentions writing introductions for a new Modern Library edition of Virginia Woolf\u2019s \u201cThe Waves,\u201d due out in January, and for an edition of Emily Bront\u00eb\u2019s \u201cWuthering Heights,\u201d then recalls working with Shanahan on a song for filmmaker Wim Wenders\u2019 documentary about Pope Francis. \u201cThe hardest thing for me is to write lyrics because I don\u2019t think like a musician. I\u2019m a performer, but not really a musician. If I never wrote another song, it wouldn\u2019t be painful to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Patti Smith talked about her \u201cA Book of Days\u201d at the Miami Book Fair on Nov. 18, 2022. ( Photo by Alberto Tamargo, courtesy of AET\/Miami Book Fair)<\/p>\n
She takes what she does seriously, with each assignment calling for a different approach. Yet, the ambition remains the same.<\/p>\n
\u201cI still feel like I haven\u2019t written the book,\u201d and describes wanting to write something as great as \u201cPinocchio.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s got like sort of alchemy,\u201d she says. \u201cEverything is in the same story. It\u2019s the one perfect book and that\u2019s always been my goal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whether that ambition is attainable matters less than what it gives her.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s one of the things that keeps me going,\u201d she says. \u201cI want to write something really wonderful.\u201d<\/p>\n
WHAT: \u201cAn Evening of Songs and Stories With Patti Smith\u201d<\/p>\n
WHEN: 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 9<\/p>\n
WHERE: Ziff Ballet Opera House, Adrienne Arsht Center, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami<\/p>\n
COST: $40.02, including fees; each full-price ticket includes a copy of \u201cBread of Angels.\u201d<\/p>\n
INFORMATION: (305) 949-6722 or arshtcenter.org<\/a><\/p>\n ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit media source for the arts featuring fresh and original stories by writers dedicated to theater, dance, visual arts, film, music and more. Don\u2019t miss a story at www.artburstmiami.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Written By Michelle F. Solomon October 6, 2026 at 2:07 PM Patti Smith reads from her book \u201cM…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":420608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[225,227,226],"class_list":["post-420607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hialeah","tag-hialeah","tag-hialeah-headlines","tag-hialeah-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}