LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Punk rock pioneer Patti Smith will receive a lifetime achievement award from the music industry next month in honor of her genre-bending 40-year career as singer, poet, political activist and painter.

Smith, 63, will be presented with the Founders Award during performing rights group ASCAP´s annual pop music awards dinner honoring the composers and publishers of the most-performed songs of 2009.

She will also perform at the black-tie event, set for April 21 at the Renaissance Hotel in Hollywood.

"She expanded the boundaries of artistic expression, musically and otherwise, inspiring generations of rockers worldwide," ASCAP president and CEO Paul Williams said in a statement.

"She continues to be a vibrant, prolific artist, working in a wide variety of media."

Past Founders Award honorees include Joni Mitchell, Paul McCartney, Neil Young and Tom Waits.

Smith steadfastly denies categorization and especially disdains the sobriquet "Godmother of Punk," but is nonetheless considered a key figure of the New York punk scene in the 1970s, perennially eulogized by rockers including R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe.

The daughter of a blue-collar New Jersey couple drew upon such influences as William Blake, Arthur Rimbaud, Walt Whitman and William Burroughs to supply the oft-romanticized revolution with a defiant vocabulary epitomized by the lyric "Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine."

She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 2007.