William S. Burroughs (1914-1997) is a founding member of the Beat Generation.
Carroll’s first reference to Burroughs, as far as I know, is in The Basketball Diaries: “‘Take a hard look down that long corridor,’ as The Man said, wiseguy” (p. 200), alluding to Naked Lunch, where Burroughs writes: “Look down LOOK DOWN along that junk road before you travel there and get in with the Wrong Mob. . . . A word to the wise guy” (Grove edition, p. xix). Similarly, Carroll’s poem “Paregoric Babies” in Living at the Movies is a reference to Burroughs, who writes (just before the passage above): “Paregoric Babies of the World Unite. We have nothing to lose but Our Pushers.”
Carroll first met Burroughs probably around 1971-72 or so, at a party which he describes in “The Loft Party” in Forced Entries (pp. 101-110). Burroughs ordered a cocktail from Carroll, thinking he was the bartender . . . they ended up talking about Dutch Schultz.
Here is Carroll reading a passage from “The Loft Party” at Cafe Largo in Los Angeles, CA, in March 1991:
Burroughs appears in Poetry in Motion and Gang of Souls, and on The Dial-a-Poem Poets, Disconnected, Life Is a Killer, You’re a Hook: The 15 Year Anniversary of Dial-a-Poem, and Better an Old Demon Than a New God, along with Carroll and others.
Learn more about Burroughs on Wikipedia.
Pencil drawing of Burroughs ©1993 Cassie Carter