The Coral Sea is a poem written by Patti Smith as a liturgy for her friend Robert Mapplethorpe, whom she witnessed suffer as terminal illness painfully took his life. The poem describes a young man becoming artist – “his delicate eye saw with clarity what others did not” – his defiance and seduction of nature and her eventual revenge – “he was destined to be ill” – and the artists final journey to see the Southern Cross, seeking a rare butterfly in the Papuan jungle that would deliver him from this world of pain.
The poem’s imagery splits in two: there’s the hero’s cycle of journey and triumph but also that of the poet standing by her friend’s sick bed as he sweats under terminal pain, slipping in and out of dreams, struggling to drink his tea and smoking a final cigarette while attempting to take control of his dying.
Smith explains that attempting to read the poem in public was difficult to sustain but working with Kevin Shields (My Bloody Valentine) allowed her to immerse herself in sound and deliver an emotional reading. The double CD The Coral Sea contains two live performances in 2005 and 2006 at around an hour each of a complete reading of the poem with Shields’ on effect-stacked guitar.
Catholic imagery is embedded within the poem, which Shields emphasises in the opening refrain of the first performance, establishing the character of his playing throughout. He responds to Smith’s passionate recitation, giving her room to breathe by crafting gentle shapes or falling into silence before piling it on thick. Smith delivers an extraordinary performance, her broad, measured voice at times cracking and breaking into song across the surface of Shields’ accompaniment, or buried within the din. The Coral Sea will reward the attentive listener with richly charged imagery of a strange journey and feverish visions that burn up the remainder of a man.
Adam Bell
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