Rating:
Genre:
Spoken Word
Release Date: 07/08/2008
Patti Smith's
The Coral Sea is a small book-length poem published in 1997 by
Norton; it is a sustained, very personal meditation, a tribute to and elegy for the late photographer
Robert Mapplethorpe. A
Mapplethorpe photograph appears on
Smith's debut album,
Horses, and
Smith was
Mapplethorpe's first model -- he photographed her literally thousands of times. He passed away from complications due to AIDS seven years before
The Coral Sea appeared; the book refers to him as "Passenger M," an artist and a man on a sailing journey to see the Southern Cross before his ascent out of this world. Through images, personal memories, and allusions to his life and work, his relationship with
Sam Wagstaff, and his suffering through the terminal illness, the work is
Smith's poetic masterpiece. It stands out from the rest of her published work as a written hymn, an ode, a deeply moving contemplation where language, space, and imagery are open, pregnant with meaning and grief, celebration and brokenness.
This double-CD set is a live recording of
Smith reading the
The Coral Sea in collaboration with
Kevin Shields of
My Bloody Valentine; he accompanies her on electric guitar and effects. It is compiled from two separate sold-out performances at
the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London in June of 2005 and September of 2006. It is released on their own
PASK imprint. The pair did not rehearse together before the performance. For those who are familiar with
Shields' work with
MBV, he appears here utterly separate from that identity. He offers mostly sonic textures and colors that allow
Smith to find her way through what she says was impossible to get through before. His accompaniment underscores and illuminates her language, which is alternately tender, feverish, surreal, intimate, loving, passionate, and deeply sorrowful.
Shields offers large places of safety for
Smith to read through this poem, shielding her spirit while encouraging her to move deeper into the poem. The effect is intense and adventurous, read at white heat, possessed by light and the portrait of an artist in transition -- not
Smith, but
Mapplethorpe -- from the realm of the flesh to the blinding light of pure spirit, no longer contained by long-suffering flesh.
The Coral Sea is for true fans of
Smith, to be sure. That said, it is also for those who enjoy "performance poetry," though this feels so spontaneous that it transcends that term readily and completely. Above all, it is for those who still find truth, beauty, and vision in poetry itself; because this is the single item in
Smith's catalog putting that forth with such power and authority, it restores one's faith in poetry being able to convey that which cannot be conversed about or written in prose. Poetry and music are so closely aligned anyway that at their best, they become one. This is a stunning, awe-inspiring, love-soaked example.
~Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
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