Carroll Captivates Student Audience

Jim Carroll at Oklahoma State University (Stillwater, OK)
Review by Cary Aspinwall
The Daily O’Collegian 22 April 1998

The explicitly
powerful words of author, poet and musician Jim Carroll filled the Seretean Center as well
as the minds of several Oklahoma State University students Tuesday night.

Jim Carroll, poet and musician, performs Tuesday evening. Carroll is well known for his
volumes of poetry and prose including “The Basketball Diaries.” He was brought
to OSU by the SUAB and the SGA Speakers Board.

Photo by Paul Rutherford / O’Collegian

Carroll, the
author of several volumes of poetry and prose, including “The Basketball
Diaries,” which later was made into a movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio, performed
several of his signature poems and stories for a fairly large audience.

Ginger Sorrels, counseling senior,
said Carroll’s performance was entertaining.

“I liked
this venue much better (than Gallagher-Iba Arena),” Sorrels said. “I especially
liked the end, when he was doing his songs.”

Sorrels said
she was somewhat familiar with Carroll’s work. She had seen “The Basketball
Diaries” and looked up some of his poems on the Internet when she heard he was coming
to OSU.

Carroll began
the evening on a humorous note, with a prose piece titled “A Day at the Races,”
a story about racing pubic crabs with a woman named Jenny.

“Golly,
what a woman — who can turn an ailment into a viable recreation,” Carroll said.

He mentioned
his struggle to free himself of drug addiction on several occasions.

“I got
clean in California,” he said. “And I went back to New York to see if I could
stay clean.”

He performed
pieces on topics ranging from performance artists to satanists, an overweight bat and a
tribute to Kurt Cobain.

He spoke about
the “worst cat of all time,” a cat that had a taste for semen, among other odd
habits.

Doug Martin,
English graduate student, said he enjoyed the performance a lot.

“When I
was a young pup, Jim Carroll was my idol,” Martin said. “Because he’s like a
tent that zoomed from Mars back to the kitchen salad.”

As the
performance progressed, Carroll delved into his poetry and songs.

One fast-paced
poem was actually a message he left on someone’s answering machine, he said.

He shared
several of his observations on poets and mosquitoes.

“There
are too many poets and not enough mosquitoes,” he said. “A poet sees an owl and
sees a woman’s crotch. A mosquito sees a poet, and he sees a woman’s crotch. Poets and
mosquitoes have one thing in common — they both suck.”

He acquired a
more serious demeanor as he performed a capella song lyrics.

“If you
know how it ends, why did you let it begin?…You can’t live without the beast
within,” he sung in a low growl.

He will
release a new album this fall, a mixture of songs and spoken word set to music.

Carroll signed
books and chatted with audience members after the performance — answering questions,
accepting praise and sketches from devoted fans.

Ryan Jewell,
music freshman, was one of the fans.

“I bought
‘Fear of Dreaming’ when I was 15. It was the first book of poetry I ever bought,”
Jewell said. “It was very cool to see him, since I have liked him so long.”

Carroll said
he felt a “good energy” with the OSU audience.

“I can
feel (the energy) right away in an audience,” he said. “In the middle, you kind
of have to retake the pulse and adjust.”

Carroll has a
new book that will be published this fall called “Void of Course.”

“It’s an
astrological term. I’m not really into astrology, but it means you don’t have a moon
sign,” he said. “I liked the sound of it. I’m always void.”

The original article was
found at http://www.ocolly.com/issues/1998_Spring/980422/stories/carrol.html