Patti Smith: Dodge Poetry Festival
About This Event
Patti Smith, singer, songwriter, poet and author whose work grew out of New York’s 1970s punk and downtown arts circles, brings her hybrid of spoken text and stripped-back rock to NJPAC as part of the Dodge Poetry Festival. Her debut album Horses helped establish her practice of folding spoken language into rock, and her live program favors direct address and clarity over spectacle.
About Dodge Poetry Festival
The other Dodge Poetry Festival comes to NJPAC as a live, staged gathering that treats poetry as a public art form, not a private page. Featured performer Patti Smith brings a Rock/Pop sensibility to the program, where spoken language and song share the same room. While the festival’s deepest roots are across the river in New Jersey, it has long functioned as part of the wider New York–area literary circuit, drawing audiences who move easily between boroughs and Newark. The event suggests, quietly, that performance is one way poems stay socially current.
About the Artist
Patti Smith
Patti Smith is a singer, songwriter, poet, and author whose work took shape in New York’s 1970s punk and downtown arts circles. Her debut album *Horses* set a template for folding spoken language into stripped-back rock, and she has continued to move between text and song in performance.