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Living at the Movies
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Originally published in 1973, Living at the Movies was the first aboveground publication of the work of Jim Carroll, author of the now-classic Basketball Diaries and a singer-songwriter whom Newsweek called "contender for the title of rock's new poet laureate." In these poems, all written before the age of twenty-two, Carroll shows an uncanny virtuosity. His power and pois
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Paperback, 112 pages
Published
September 24th 1981
by Penguin Books
(first published 1973)
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Start your review of Living at the Movies
Jim Carroll died last week so I revisited this, my favorite collection of his poetry.
Reading it now one thing that stands out, besides my own abiding affection for the work, is his strange fixation on the word “blue”. Poets should have strange affinities for particular words, using them as all-purpose condensations of meaning, as noun as adjective as whatever. It emphasises the malleable and fluid nature of language, and puts language in its proper place as something that we can use, like paint ...more
Reading it now one thing that stands out, besides my own abiding affection for the work, is his strange fixation on the word “blue”. Poets should have strange affinities for particular words, using them as all-purpose condensations of meaning, as noun as adjective as whatever. It emphasises the malleable and fluid nature of language, and puts language in its proper place as something that we can use, like paint ...more
The best thing I can say about this is that after I finished it I was compelled to read through my own early-20s poetry and forgive myself my own embarrasingly experimental extravagances. Carroll does certainly succeed in creating the occasional striking image.
Also, this (from "Maybe I'm Amazed") is just too, too funny:
Richard Brautigan,
I just don't care who you are fucking
in your clean california air ...more
Also, this (from "Maybe I'm Amazed") is just too, too funny:
Richard Brautigan,
I just don't care who you are fucking
in your clean california air ...more
Amazing. It's so hard for me to understand why he isn't more famous.
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Poetry. The not so great kind. But nevertheless a solid effort.
Sometimes cruddy poetry leaves you with an inspired feeling about your own.
Sometimes cruddy poetry leaves you with an inspired feeling about your own.
Reposting this review: RIP Jim Carroll, poet, punk rocker, inspiration. Thank you for expanding the boundaries of my mind at an early age. May all of the other "People Who Died" be there to greet you.
I read this book when I was twelve years old. An aunt gave me a tattered copy of it, knowing I liked poetry, but not knowing that Jim Carroll's poetry might change the chemistry of my brain cells forever. At twelve, I found it strange and dangerous. By the time I was seventeen, I had researched the ...more
I read this book when I was twelve years old. An aunt gave me a tattered copy of it, knowing I liked poetry, but not knowing that Jim Carroll's poetry might change the chemistry of my brain cells forever. At twelve, I found it strange and dangerous. By the time I was seventeen, I had researched the ...more
I’ve been a Jim Carroll fan since I was a teen and like a stupid asshole I never read his first book until now. It’s the ultimate Jim Carroll poetry with the veracity of a true immortal—Jim is highly underrated. That is all.
-1.5- Ok fair play on this atrocity masquerading as a book, I am not a poetry guy but I know it when I read it. This was young heroin junkie gibberish; to wit: p. 32 "The way a man sits all day on a manhole cover contemplating a rubber stamp." Profound! Not in the least. I read some of the other reviews by the wannabe "literati" and the impression I had is it is trendy to say this is good because of the writer, not the content. Well, I can tell you I suffer not at all from this misapprehension.
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Carroll's writing style is sometimes blunt, but often goes off into the abstract in a way that I find too difficult to follow. While certain poems stand out as eliciting mysterious feeling, others left me wondering what the point was, or if the poem was more of just an exercise. In any case, it's decent, but not my favorite.
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Five stars to titular poem. Cut-ups?
I’m not the best interpreter of poetry but the stuff I could make out was striking.
I've heard that you really need to read this book as a companion to "The Basketball Diaries," and I haven't read that book nor seen the movie, so perhaps that is my problem with this book. A strikingly effective image every five pages or so doesn't qualify as poetry to me; the words need to be spot on a much higher percentage than that for me. This book could use some heavy editing but then there wouldn't be enough for a book, I guess.
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His first collection of poem before NODThe Book of Nods. Although I read it much after Nod.
I find the imagines fresh and abstract.
There is a fantastic sense of scale. I picture a boat in a cup of coffee. A dutch oven being dragged around on the floor.
It is like entering a dream.
The poet is aware of Rimbau, another of the young talented and reckless. ...more
I find the imagines fresh and abstract.
There is a fantastic sense of scale. I picture a boat in a cup of coffee. A dutch oven being dragged around on the floor.
It is like entering a dream.
The poet is aware of Rimbau, another of the young talented and reckless. ...more
Written during the time of Basketball Diaries and Forced Entry( both are like a pt. 1 and 2 of eachother)these poems so far are like glimplses into what he calls nods-high on smack, or not, and reflecting on his life, the moment. Something I wish i had mastered.
One of the reasons I tried to write poetry (and if you've read any of mine, you'd know that that's probably not the best endorsement for Carroll's work). Totally inspirational at that time in my life.
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Found a worn out copy in a used book store, owned by a strange old man with two fat cats wandering through the shelves. I sat down in one of his beat up easy chairs and read from cover to cover before leaving buying it.
Love at frist READ!
Love at frist READ!
Not great. The best poems in the collection are good in the sense that derivations of Frank O'Hara are generally good. The collection was written before Carroll was 22, but that caveat alone doesn't add much to the reading experience. There are good lines, some good poems, but it's uneven at best.
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Sublime imagery
I didn't get into this collection until about halfway through. The middle of this book glows.
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These poems made me fall in love with Jim Carroll. I still remember staring at his face on the front of my paperback copy.
Read this and The Basketball Diaries at the same time. Not a poetry expert, but I enjoyed it enough!
Jun 21, 2008
Marc
marked it as to-read
Jim is the man
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James Dennis "Jim" Carroll was an author, poet, autobiographer, and punk musician. Carroll was best known for his 1978 autobiographical work The Basketball Diaries, which was made into the 1995 film of the same name with Leonardo DiCaprio as Carroll.
Carroll became sober in the 1970s. After moving to California, he met Rosemary Klemfuss; the couple married in 1978. The marriage ended in divorce, bu ...more
Carroll became sober in the 1970s. After moving to California, he met Rosemary Klemfuss; the couple married in 1978. The marriage ended in divorce, bu ...more
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