Patti Smith. The Patti Smith. The godmother of punk. Beat poet. Artist. Musician. Rock journalist. Ex-girlfriend of some of art and music's most talented men. Subject of a documentary which just premiered at this year's Sundance Film Festival. Recent inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In short, quite possibly the coolest woman alive. About a month ago, she and her band put on a rousing rock show at the 9:30 club. This Friday, Patti visited D.C. by herself, and treated an intimate crowd in the Nan Tucker McEvoy Auditorium at the Smithsonian's Archive's of American Art to something a little different.

Touted as "an evening of spoken word and song," this weekend's show was something much more special. As it turned out, it was in promotion of a new book the Archives are publishing, With Love, a collection of letters between artists and their loved ones. Patti Smith read from a selection of letters from the book, sang songs, shared her thoughts on art and communication and love, and even read a love letter of her own, from photographer Robert Mapplethorpe when the two were living in the Chelsea Hotel. This was the first of this type of event for the Archives — which usually features scholars, artists and curators — but they hope to make it the first of many. Based on what we saw, that would be a very good thing.

The evening wouldn't have resonated half as much with anyone else at the helm. Patti Smith is so honest and free and true to her feelings and ideas, that whether she was sharing her own stories and songs or reading the longings of others, they rang with reality and emotion. She took the stage by herself — no roadies, no backups — in her standard attire (lose black suit, white shirt, lose black tie, wild long lose hair, black cowboy boots, round silver framed reading glasses), and said, "I felt I should be able to do something at the Smithsonian, being a Smith." She began reading the letters, altering her voice to fit the stories to make them more casual, or lusty, or longing.

The letters, which ranged from funny to quirky to heartbreaking, discussed love by way of art, or art by way of love. The letters she read were all notable, but it was her asides and introductions that really made the evening. Like the way she described the artist Joan Mitchell, before reading her letter to lover Michael Goldberg. "Certain broads just know how to smoke a cigarette. I know we're not supposed to admire it." That particular letter was read with such personal, casual colloquialism that it sounded as if Smith herself had written it. "I'm drinkin' the beer you left me on the winah' sill. And I'm kissin you. I do this all the time." As you might expect, she discussed letters as a lost art — their beauty being in their "paper, the handwriting, the little drawings." The handwriting that conveys the sorrow or energy of the authors. She said, "I know they can be burned... but they can't be deleted."

The performance was as personal as any of the letters read. She shared off the cuff memories of old loves — sitting on Tom Verlaine's lap on an old chair with springs sticking out, watching the light on their apartment floor. Or waiting for six hours for Fred "Sonic" Smith to call, and in that time writing "Because The Night". Or being commanded by Smith, "People are the power. Write it."

She only sang a few songs, because she only knows how to play a few without a band. She sang "Gratitude", Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome", "My Blakean Year", a letter/song to her daughter Jessie ("but anyone can have it"), and finally — and most movingly — a song she wrote after losing her husband that she rarely ever performs. The only other sound in the auditorium throughout that song were the muffled sniffles of everyone trying not to cry too loudly.

After an encore of the only other song she knows on guitar, "Ghandi", and a second standing ovation, the evening came to a close. It was one of the best performances of any kind we've seen in a long time. If the Smithsonian can continue setting up programs as special as this one, then we'll continue to stand in line for a seat.