Patti Smith: Wild Leaves, Live on Spinning on Air in The Greene Space

Subscribe for more WNYC videos: Singer, songwriter and poet Patti Smith opened an evening of music and poetry in The Greene Space by reading these lines from T.S. Eliot’s poem, “The Wasteland“: April is the cruelest month, breeding / Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing / Memory and desire, stirring. “We are going to speak of, this evening, the things that stir us,“ Smith said. The April 23 event, Mixing Memory and Desire: An Evening of Music, Poetry, Sound and Remembrance, was presented by WNYC’s Spinning on Air and hosted by David Garland. Smith was joined on stage by composer-musicians Jesse Paris Smith and Eric Hoegemeyer (of Brooklyn’s Tree Laboratory). Their mission that evening: to honor the chaos and transformation of spring through performances of both original pieces and interpretations of works by Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, W.G. Sebald and more. WATCH THE FULL SHOW HERE: