Patti Smith and "the authoritative institution of poetry"

Noah once asked me to explain the Leonard Cohen lyric "I know that I'm forgiven/But I don't know how I know." I always thought that it would have a lot to do with "Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine," and it turns out I might be right:

. . . a quick tour through Smith’s childhood reveals a rich dichotomy between her Jehovah’s Witness mother and freethinking atheist father that would not only manifest itself directly in her music (“Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine,” goes Horses’ famous opening declaration, immediately stating which side of the divide she has fallen on), but would also go on to provide the essential tension at the core of her life and art. While initially offering a reprieve from the stifling nature of her mother’s faith, facilitating what Shaw beautifully describes as Smith’s “endeavor to supplant the illusory ecstasies of religion with the materialist excesses of the body,” the wild sexual abandon of classic rock ‘n’ roll would later come to subvert, for Smith, the authoritative institution of poetry, as well.