Reed and Smith represent the intellectual core of the punk scene that also found expression in Jim Carroll, Tom Verlain, and Richard Hell. What sets these punk "intellectuals" apart from their counterparts like The Ramones and (to a lesser extent) The New York Dolls is that they perceived of themselves as poets and writers within a romantic tradition that included Blake, Rimbaud, Genet, Morrison, Schwartz, Burroughs, and Ginsburg, rather than as disaffected, working-class youths who sought release from their alienated circumstances through rock 'n' roll.

Rather than focus exclusively on theories of autobiography and biography, we include theories of identity formation and performativity for three reasons: 1) discussions of identity and auto/biography, we believe, are inevitably interconnected in significant ways; 2) we find theories of identity and performativity useful in delineating the discursive affects of textual and visual iconography produced by the Punk Movement; and 3) as performers, Reed and Smith, literally, constructed and reconstructed their identities via public performances that were integral to the creation of an intellectual "New York punk identity."

Biography and Autobiography

The terms autobiography and biography certainly convey the sense of constructed identities that we investigate in this essay; after all, autobiographical and biographical texts construct subjectivities. Where things get complicated, though, is that, even as postmodern readers, we often still expect such texts to convey a "true" self or subject. The terms autobiography and biography, no matter how critically contested, still carry with them expectations of authority. For example, Patti Smith has expressed her disappointment with Patricia Morrisroe's biography of Smith's self-described "soulmate," Robert Mapplethorpe. In a 1995 interview, Smith said that rather than writing the "truth" about Mapplethorpe, Morrisroe had written a story more appropriate for a tabloid than a well-researched biography:

Artists are, by nature of being artists, self-involved or self-possessed. But also, they maintain a certain innocence, partially by continuing to be spoiled children all their lives. . . . I think that spirit was not captured . . . . I was hoping for a book that would give a real sense of Robert as an artist and of the things that drove him internally as well as externally. (McDonnell)

So, if a biography fails to tell the "truth" about its subject, where do we go for such "truth"? Smith may argue (and, granted, here we're speculating) that to "know" Robert Mapplethorpe or Patti Smith or Lou Reed, you go to their work, not to a biography. In a sense, Mapplethorpe's, Smith's, and Reed's work can be read as autobiographical--when Smith writes about her sister in "Kimberly," she also constructs herself as subject; the song becomes autobiographical.

Autobiography also presents us with a problem because most readers still expect the genre to be "authentic." For example, we may assume (as we've just done) that "Kimberly" is about the "real" Patti Smith and her "real" sister. This is, as we know, not necessarily the case, and as much as we know this (as poststructuralists), we may still resist--and for good reason. If, for example, Lou Reed constructs himself as a queer subject (The Phantom of Rock), then what happens when Reed declares he is not gay (and even denies that there was ever anything "real" in that period of his life)? The gay subject, then, is not "real," a very dangerous political proposition.

In an interview, Kathy Acker describes her early experiments with autobiography as a means of exploring the relationship between subjectivity and language. By placing "very direct autobiographical . . . diary material . . . next to fake diary material[,] I tried to figure out who I wasn't" (7). By "put[ting] the fake person next to the true first person," Acker continues, "I was experimenting about identity in terms of language . . [,] splitting the I into false and true I's. . . . I realized that you make the I and what makes the I are texts" (7, 11). Acker's texts deconstruct the boundary between the "false I" and the "true I," between the self and the other, making it difficult (if not impossible) to tell where one ends and the other begins. Indeed, Acker's texts discursively enact the deconstruction of the "autobiographical" self, as she engages in a sort of textual sampling--placing "original" material alongside pre-existing texts. However, with Acker, the deconstruction of subjectivities is empowering rather than anxiety-ridden or politically devestating. "What's fun is what happens when you start playing with a text," she explains, "it's just like jazz riffs . . . . You've got the text in front of you and you go everywhere. . . . I use your work, you use my work, we use everyone's work" (11).

Acker's texts dynamically demonstrate the concept of performativity, which proves more useful in our inquiry because it helps us theorize about the dynamics of subjectivity. Because biography and autobiography still carry expectations "authenticity," they do not lend themselves as well to an exploration of what happens (rhetorically, culturally, and politically) when a subjectivity constructed in a text is undermined.

Performativity

Performativity originated within speech act theory as "that discursive practice that enacts or produces that which it names" (Butler, Bodies 13). Interestingly, the most cited examples of performatives involve the "I," the subject who utters and enacts that which s/he (often as an agent of authority) utters: "I now pronounce you husband and wife"; "I christen . . . "; "I sentence . . . . " The marriage ceremony, for example, is central to the origins of performativity; the marriage is enacted both by the "I do"s and the "I now pronounce you . . . "; the utterances of the ceremony "thus insta[ll] monogamous heterosexual dyadic church- and state-sanctioned marriage" (Sedgwick 3). As Butler argues, "[p]erformativity is . . . not a singular 'act,' for it is always a reiteration of a norm or set of norms, and to the extent that it acquires an act-like status in the present, it conceals or dissimulates the conventions of which it is a repetition" (Bodies 12). Theories of performativity work especially well when attempting to delineate a "punk identity" because punk itself has been discursively constituted by social and cultural authorities, as well those individuals who fashion themselves as "other." That is, Reed and Smith, as well as their photographers and biographers, have constructed "Lou Reed" and "Patti Smith" as prototypical "punks."

Punk

The term punk is often used ambiguously. Of course, a large part of what we're concerned with in this paper involves punk music, generally defined as a form of rock 'n' roll that is loud, in-your-face, low-tech, and rough, and associated with a musical movement that began in New York in the 1970s. John Holmstrom and Legs McNeil, publishers of Punk, an underground fanzine, described punk as "[d]runk, obnoxious, smart but not pretentious, absurd, funny, ironic, and [a delight in] things that [appeal] to the darker side" (McNeil 204). In its purest form, a punk philosophy maintains that any band with an electric guitar, bass, drums, an angry singer, and a DIY attitude can make punk music. (Despite the numerous reports of its death following the disbandment of the Sex Pistols in 1978, punk is alive and well and probably being played somewhere near you.)

Punk's existence heralded the development of not only a new musical style but also the beginnings of punk subculture. Two of its most prominent artists were Lou Reed and Patti Smith.

Lou Reed

The seeds of Lou Reed's punk persona were planted when, at 17, his parents forced him to undergo electroshock therapy to "cure" his homosexuality. Reed describes the episode:

That's what was recommended [in 1959]…to discourage homosexual feelings. The effect is that you lost your memory and become a vegetable. You can't read a book because you get to page seventeen and have to go right back to page one again (McNeill & McCain 3-4).

The episode was important for a number of reasons: It forced him to examine a sexuality considered "wrong"; it freed him to construct himself; and it became a cornerstone of his punk persona: Reed is always oppressed, an outsider, and queer--which is ironic given his very middle-class background. When Reed was at Syracuse, according to a fellow student/musician, "Part of his aura was that he was a psychologically troubled person who . . . had had electroshock treatments . . . . He used that as part of his persona. Where the reality and the fantasy . . . crossed, who knew?" (qtd. in Bockris 35). Similarly, Velvet Underground member John Cale described Reed's performances as having "an element of character assassination . . . . It was Method Acting in song" (McNeill & McCain 5).

Syracuse also introduced Reed to poet Delmore Schwartz, who encouraged Reed as a poet and writer; though, ironically, Schwartz hated rock'n'roll, calling it "catgut music." But, as Peter Doggett observes, while "Delmore [Schwartz] invested Lou with the power of the word; Andy [Warhol] demonstrated the power of the image" (42).

Reed's experience with the Velvet Underground and Warhol in the late 60s gave him crucial insight into himself. The Factory, a haven for outsiders, provided an environment that encouraged Reed to experiment with image--the jeans, leather jackets, and sunglasses--as well as his sexuality. On The Velvet Underground and Nico, Reed told stories of junkies and transvestites against a radical musical background: It was punk at its best. Warhol gave Reed the confidence to pursue the performances that would define his career.

After Reed left Warhol and the Velvet Underground, he emerged in 1972 under the glitter tuteledge of David Bowie as the commercially successful "Phantom of Rock." On Transformer, Reed's gender experiments were overt as he became a rock'n'roll Frankenstein with make-up and spangles. The album was "a primer for the new gay/glam crossover" (Doggett 81)--even though Reed was in a heterosexual relationship and married after completing the album. Reed's public punk performance was at odds with his private self.

When Reed's follow-up, Berlin (1973), an autobiographical account of his failed marriage as dramatized in the stories of two American junkies, was a commercial failure, he was devastated, telling Alan Jones it was "probably the biggest disappointment I ever faced. I pulled the blinds SHUT . . . . And they've remained closed" (qtd. in Doggett). Thus was born the Rock & Roll Animal-"a parody of rock excess which fitted Reed so well that it became impossible to distinguish from his actual personality" (Doggett 90). This was Reed at his most self-destructive where the highlight of a show was his pumping up a vein during "Heroin." It was the junkie made artist--and the ultimate punk statement.

After that, Reed made dramatic artistic shifts that decreased his commercial popularity. In 1974, Reed began a three-year relationship with Rachel, an exotic drag-queen hairdresser who was Reed's muse through the mid-seventies. Coney Island Baby is a moving testament to his feelings for her as well as an exploration of his own sexuality, with Reed as openly gay. Reed continued his commercial self-destruction with 1975's Metal Machine Music, probably his most punk album, a "musical Tower of Babel" (Doggett 1). Reed's feelings about the disc have never been clear. On one hand, he has called it, "[P]robably one of the best things I ever did" (qtd. in Doggett 3). But at a more pragmatic level, it enabled Reed to break ties with his manager and an audience he had tired of, those fans who kept wanting "Walk on the Wild Side" (Doggett 5). That is, it allowed Reed to begin reconstructing himself as a "serious" artist.

Although Reed's commercial popularity has diminished, he remains a critical favorite with albums such as New York and Magic and Loss--and he continues to pursue rock'n'roll as a vehicle for the Great American Novel. (He has also married and divorced again and now lives with performance artist Laurie Anderson-Reed, too, downplays his homosexuality.) Throughout his career, Reed has published in literary magazines and has edited Between Thought and Expression, a collection of his lyrics. (A second collection is forthcoming.)

Reed's reconstruction of his earlier career is fascinating. Consider, his remarks in 1979: "My expectations are very high…to be the greatest writer that ever lived . . . . I'm talking about Shakespeare, Dostoevsky. I want to do that rock and roll thing that's on the level of The Brothers Karamazov" (To Paul Morely). That is, Reed compares himself not with other musicians but with the great writers of the world. Similarly, Reed has noted, "Well, Faulkner had the South, Joyce had Dublin. I've got New York . . ." (Fricke 116). Reed epitomizes the punk artist who, through a variety of performances has made himself "legitimate."

Patti Smith

Patti Smith grew up in a working-class family in rural New Jersey to a devout Jehovah's Witness mother and agnostic father. Smith's biographers, as well as Smith herself, draw heavily upon a childhood illness as the one of the first "punk" moments of her life: At the age of 7, Smith developed scarlet fever, and as a result, was "beset by terrifying visions that plagued her for years" (Morrisroe 48). This set Smith apart and was instrumental in defining her as an outsider.

Compounding her social difficulties, Smith was uncomfortable "being a girl," and later described this as a defining issue of her youth:

female. feel male. Ever since I felt the need to choose I'd choose male. . . . . . Every feminine gesture I affected from my mother humiliated me. ("Female," 1967, qtd. in Morrisroe 49-50)

Smith constructs herself as alienated from a society that inscribes the individual according to gender roles. Her feminity is "affected"; there is nothing "natural" about being "female." As this defiant photo illustrates, Smith's anxieties about gendered public restrooms, along with her humiliation, later plays itself out in a way that is very punk.

Smith left for New York intending to become a visual artist, and in 1969 met Mapplethorpe, who took this photo for the cover of her first album, Horses (1975). (Note how Smith fashions her own "punk uniform," which, again in the mostly male punk scene, was being developed as ripped jeans, white t-shirt, and boots.) The two became lovers and lived together for several years in prototypical punk circumstances. Like Reed, Smith has been remembered as suffering from mental instability, another punk signifier. Mapplethorpe described her as being "on the edge of being psychotic in a schizophrenic way. . . . If she hadn't discovered art, she would have wound up in a mental institution" (51). Smith began to write about her experiences in New York, and discovered that writing (whether inspired by madness, creativity, or mystic energy) was, for her, a tremendous form of expression; when combined with music, words became even more powerful. Her improvised performances with guitarist Lenny Kaye became one of St. Mark's Church most popular attractions, and in 1974, Smith and Kaye founded The Patti Smith Group. Their performances were noted for combining the power of rock 'n' roll with lyrics that could stand alone as poetry.

One of Smith's goals as an artist has been subversion of authoritative structures, and she perceived early that punk music was (like virtually every other aspect of her life) male-dominated. Part of Smith's formulation of herself as a punk artist involves her making a place for herself within this male tradition. She had long considered this; the poets and writers she felt the strongest connections to (Rimbaud, Genet, Burroughs, and Ginsberg) were also male. This photo shows Smith hiding behind a photo of Bob Dylan. Interestingly, her body does not seem totally out of place. The thin frame fits the face in the photo. We can see bits of her hair, so we know there's a face behind the photo, and the hat perched atop her knee (a distinctly "feminine" piece of clothing). In fact, the hat perhaps seems more out of place in this photo than face of Bob Dylan. The suit and boots are androgynous, and "fit" with the male face.

Smith's picking up an electric guitar (part of her punk "look") is an empowering act for her as a woman. Traditionally, the electric guitar has been coded as masculine. Aside from its obviously phallic construction, in the early 1970s, not many women played guitar. (While in Britain, Chrissie Hynde and The Slits, and in the U. S., Suzi Quatro (electric bass) and The Runaways would play electric guitars, all of these bands were developing at the same time or after The Patti Smith Group was formed.) Essentially, Smith was traversing new territory for women.

In 1976, Smith wrote of her guitar: "Legend had it that Jimi Hendrix had played it. Legend or not, it was mine. . . . I wasn't interested in learning chords, I was interested in expressing ideas, however abstract, within the realm of sound" (Smith 46). That the story about Hendrix owning the guitar may not be "true" doesn't matter; what's important is the narrative that Smith constructs, carving a place for herself within a male tradition.

In 1979, Patti Smith was in danger of becoming a punk casualty. Having recorded four albums, The Group was doing well commercially and was playing arenas. Smith decided that it was time to pull out, and so after the release of Wave, the group went on their last tour. [wave transparency--last show] On one hand, Smith's leaving represented her discomfort with being a "rock star," the antithesis of a "punk," and could actually be interpreted as very positive: She didn't "sell out." On the other hand, the shift in Smith's direction here is very non-punk. She moved to Detroit with Fred Smith and began raising a family; aside from Dream of Life, Smith would not record or perform again until after his death. The punk transforms herself into the heterosexual, middle-class, housewife, wife, and mother.

Both Reed and Smith have changed considerably since their days as part of the NY punk scene. Both are still prolific artists, a fact reflected in their writing and music.

*NOTE: All pictures of Patti Smith are from Patti Smith Complete, and all photos of Lou Reed are from Lou Reed: Between the Lines.

Acker, Kathy. "Devoured by Myths: An Interview with Sylvère Lotringer." Hannibal Lecter, My Father. Semiotext(e) Native Agents Series. Sylvère Lotringer, series ed. NY: Semiotext(e), 1991. 1-24.

Bockris, Victor. Transformer: The Lou Reed Story. New York: DaCapo, 1997.

Butler, Judith. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex." NY: Routledge, 1993.

---. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. NY: Routledge, 1990.

Doggett, Peter. . New York: Omnibus, 1992.

Fricke, David. "Lou Reed: The Rolling Stone Interview." Rolling Stone 4 May 1989. Rpt. in The Velvet Underground Companion: Four Decades of Commentary. Ed. Albin Zak III. New York: Schirmer-Simon & Schuster, 1997. 106-120.

McDonnell, Evelyn. "Because the Night" (an interview with Patti Smith). Village Voice 1 August 1995. Available World Wide Web. http://www.oceanstar.com/~fi/patti/intervus/ 950801vv.htm.

McNeil, Legs, and Gillian McCain. Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk. NY: Penguin, 1996. Morrisroe, Patricia. Mapplethorpe: A Biography. NY: Da Capo P, 1995.

Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. "Queer Performativity: Henry James's The Art of the Novel." GLQ 1 (1993): 1-16.

Smith, Patti. Patti Smith Complete: Lyrics, Reflections & Notes for the Future. NY: Doubleday, 1998.

Wrenn, Michael. Lou Reed: Between the Lines. Plexus: London, 1993.