Patti Smith (born December 30, 1946) is celebrated as the “godmother of punk rock,” but besides being a magnificent musician, she is also a phenomenal poet, artist, rebel, and modern philosopher — a mind so diversely interesting and a heart so boundless in creative curiosity that she stands as a rare kind of modern muse to generation after generation of contemporary creators. Hardly anywhere does Smith’s singular spirit shine in more kaleidoscopic dimension than in Steven Sebring’s 2007 documentary Dream of Life, named after Smith’s 1988 album of the same title. The film, a decade in the making and narrated by Smith herself, offers an intimate portrait of one of the most important artists of the last century, in which she discusses everything from art and music to love and grief to politics to how creativity works. It’s available below in two parts — please enjoy:

My mission is to communicate, to wake people up, to give them my energy and accept theirs.

The film was eventually adapted into the coffee-table photo book Patti Smith: Dream of Life (public library), a treasure in its own right.

Complement with Patti Smith’s advice to the young, her tribute to Virginia Woolf, her lettuce soup recipe for starving artists, and her stirring poems mourning her soulmate.