Shared by Dominik Frankowski
TBD if this is “our” Jim Carroll or another . . .
Dominik Frankowski wrote me to say:
“I have a poem that was written in and around 1988-1990 by Jim Carroll titled “Boston Trio” about my dad, brother and I; my family and I were street musicians throughout Boston and New York during the time, we played guitar, violin and organ and were starting to get very famous.
” I am having hard time tracking down to determine if this was written by a columnist and a book writer James Carroll of the Boston globe or Jim Carroll; as is stated on the paper?? I remember during the late 80 people telling us that a poet wrote a beautiful poem about us and that it was in the newspaper. My mother had the only article copy that she kept for many years and showed it to me this year for Christmas. I would love to find the original copy in one of Jim’s books.
“Would you happen to know; based on the type of writing, if in fact this was Jim Carroll’s work? I have contacted a gentleman by the name of James Carroll of the Boston globe to see if maybe he was the person who wrote this in the newspaper in the late 80’s but it appears that James Carroll was more of a political writer rather than a poet (still waiting on him to call back).
“Hopefully help to answer some question or determine by the type of work if this is in fact the Jim; hopefully point me to where I may possible find this poem in his book somewhere. It would be amazing for me to be able to share this with my kids one day and find the original.
I shared this with the Jim Carroll online community — lots of Bostonians and Harvard folk (and people who know how to do research) love Jim Carroll.
I said:
“It reads like an occasional poem. Those are by definition hard to find and rarely published. From the ones I have seen, JC’s occasional poems break just about all rules from my pov for identifying Jim Carroll poems. This one feels a lot like, for example, “River Jordan,” an occasional poem. Yet I would usually expect something more . . . earthy; does “the meaness [sic] of the streets” count? The use of “lad” is odd if it is “our” Jim Carroll, but it is not out of the realm of possibility at all.
“There aren’t many scenarios to explain how this might have ended up in a Boston paper if it is indeed written by “our” JC.
“Was Jim Carroll in Boston in the spring of 1988? Any other thoughts?”
Heather Herr responded to say she “poked around on newspapers.com. There are several articles in The Boston Globe about Jim Carroll through the 1980s, including 1988. He definitely did readings in Boston.” She went on to say that James Carroll lived in Boston in the 1980s, but “I’ve never seen him listed as Jim.” As an additional check: “I don’t see this poem in [the Boston Globe] archive, in any case,” Heather says.