{"id":4464,"date":"2022-01-10T22:17:48","date_gmt":"2022-01-10T22:17:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8000\/?page_id=4248"},"modified":"2025-03-05T18:20:01","modified_gmt":"2025-03-06T02:20:01","slug":"jim-carroll-caught-in-a-trap","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/research\/feature-articles\/jim-carroll-caught-in-a-trap\/","title":{"rendered":"Jim Carroll: Caught in a Trap"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Frank DiCostanzo & Michael Workman
Lumpen Times<\/a> 8 May 1999<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Exclusive<\/strong>: includes the entire Jim Carroll interview!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Saturday, May 8, diarist, musician and poet Jim Carroll made a rare appearance at Chicago night spot the Hothouse, 31 East Balbo, a spacious setting filled with Brazilian rhythms and flavor. He read from his newest collection, Void Of Course<\/em> (published by Penguin Poets, New York), to many well-dressed admirers seated among dozens of roundtop tables. Before the show got underway, I managed to innocuously eat my Philly and fries from an opportune stage left vantage, but not without having to fend off a phalanx of pushy waitresses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Entering the stage wearing a black leather jacket and bluejeans, Jim Carroll was smoking a cigarette and carrying bottled water and several books. The din of the audience dissipated as Mr. Carroll approached the microphone. He spent the first minute slowly and methodically removing his jacket while gazing emptily out into the audience, then giving a brief account, in that protean Noo Yawk accent, of his recent “Today Show” interview. He explained how the questions were purposefully ham-fisted and meant to disturb, describing the sound stage as “surreal.” This opening narrative helped to paint the image of a 70\u2019s poet displaced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shifting his focus anecdotally, Mr. Carroll went on to tell of his extended Amtrak journey from Milwaukee and of his conversation with a 300-pound redneck. The first coroner on the scene of Jayne Mansfield\u2019s decapitation, the man was carrying a French book on Satanism titled La Ba<\/em>, which compares Anton La Vey with L. Ron Hubbard. Mr. Carroll quipped, to snickers from the audience, that both authors “knew the real money was in religion.” The redneck subsequently related how he and his partner Shorty referred to the head as “she” and to the rest of Ms. Mansfield\u2019s lifeless body as “that.” Mr. Carroll went to some depth in his reflections upon the religious and philosophical implications of such particular labels. At this point, Mr. Carroll\u2019s proselytizing ignited the conservative disposition of an unruly fan who rudely belted forth with fuzzy headed fervor, “What the fuck are you talking about!?” Apparently, the aspiring poet could not fully digest the metaphysical nature of this preliminary dialogue. However, Mr. Carroll was able to somewhat skillfully subdue the young brute, who finally shut up after threatening to physically abuse several impatient audience members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After this colorful interruption, Mr. Carroll proceeded to read several poems, including “A Day At The Races” from Forced Entries<\/em>, “I Am Not Kurt Schwitterz” from Fear Of Dreaming<\/em> and, from Void Of Course<\/em>, “Facts,” “Sick Bird” (in which he left out the word “urine”) and “8 Fragments For Kurt Cobain.” He concluded with some song lyrics off his newest album, Pools of Mercury<\/em>, giving sprechstimme<\/em> performances of “Falling Down Laughing” and “the Beast Within.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the show I followed Jim backstage, where, after a brief introduction, during which he was trying to rouse up a cup of coffee, we settled into a discussion of Orpheus, death, the creative process, and Mr. Carroll\u2019s unique perspective on the current state of poetry. We focused initially on how Mr. Carroll saw himself within a heritage thousands of years old, and on the Greek myth of Orpheus–a Thracian poet whose music moved even inanimate objects. He was able to charm Pluto, god of the Underworld, into releasing his dead wife Eurydice on the condition that he would not look back during his return journey to the surface world. Orpheus, in a moment of thoughtlessness, looked back and, consequently, lost once more his love. Mr. Carroll shook his head in puzzlement at this comparison, and then gibed stone-facedly:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Uhm\u2026I\u2019ve never thought about it [the relationship of his career to the mythology], in relationship to my myth, or to my work\u2026well, Orpheus, it was great that there were hummingbirds around him all the time.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The reimagined story of Orpheus and his journey to the underworld is the subject of Salman Rushdie\u2019s newest work, The Ground Beneath Her Feet<\/em>. During a recent speaking engagement with the Chicago Historical Society, the author spoke about his writing process, and, while discussing the division of sense and intellect, of inside and outside, brought up the example of a Warhol exhibit he had been to. One piece consisted of a “learn to dance” floor arrangement, framed beneath glass which people were being encouraged to walk over. Halfway through the dance pattern, it became impossible to do. Rushdie went through it himself and also found it impossible. A little girl behind him got to the point where everybody else stumbled through the diagram and she said, “Oh, I see. You\u2019ve got to step off it.” Stepping off the glass and then back on, she was able to complete the pattern. Mr. Carroll fixed his eye, carefully digesting the indirect approach I was taking to his work, and then summed up the analogy:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Uhm, she found, uhm, she knew that she had to go beneath the surface voice.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Carroll was perceptibly resolving the seemingly disparate elements of my preliminary questions into a conversant, and therefore more personable, means of expressing what I was struggling to get at, namely, how he uniquely perceives the world in which he must exist. His thoughts appeared to coagulate as he settled back and, listening intently, sipped his coffee while we turned to his <\/em>notions of poetry and music, as performance, and of the possibilities for the further integration of these two mediums. In typical Jim Carroll fashion, he managed to respond with skillful abstraction:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Uhm, I always found my own songs and poems to be two quite different mediums, you know. Aesthetically they\u2019d be the same, but technically they\u2019re quite different, you know. I didn\u2019t like it when people would write that I wrote poems with music, you know, cuz they weren\u2019t\u2026and as for the future, I\u2026you know, uhm with the Pools Of Mercury<\/em> album I decided, well with Praying Mantis<\/em> I just, it was kind of defiant, I just needed to do no music at all. You know, and uhm, you didn\u2019t need music to you know, to have poetry just like have its own rhythm, you know, the way it should work on the page but, with the Pools Of Mercury<\/em> album, I wanted to, you know, like, uhm I mean you could just do so many things with music and stuff, and of course it goes back to the Meistersingers and the troubadours and the whole Proven\ufffdal tradition and stuff, and uhm, I think that with computers, digitally, you can do so much, you know, you can move stuff around and stuff, technically, you know, to fit a drum beat you can change the phrasing of the writer\u2014that\u2019s a problem. You know, I think it should always be done low-tech, you know, cuz at times we just change my phrasing\u2026I didn\u2019t have to read it over, you know, if you could draw out a word, you know, or put more of a pause between two words, you know, and that\u2019s a kind of dangerous thing, but uhm, fucking computer programs are going to ruin art in one way or another until we realize we\u2019re doing that, and then we\u2019ll revolt against them,\u2026uhm, so I think until then, until we decide to, you know, stop using digital technology and just go back to an analog technology where you participate with the person\u2019s<\/em> technology\u2014or with the other person\u2019s consciousness and they participate with yours, you know. It\u2019s not such a broad thing, techno-oriented. Then, you know, rock \u2018n roll\u2019s gonna be rock \u2018n roll and spoken word\u2019ll be spoken word. And if you unite the two together, it\u2019ll sound interesting as a music and the musicians you work with and stuff, you know. Otherwise you\u2019re going to have to write words that are meant to be, you know, done with music, uhm, which is somewhere between a song and a poem, because any poem worth its salt has to work on the page, you know. And so uhm, I don\u2019t think that way\u2026I mean, I read the poems which I knew were lyrical and read well\u2014from this new book, from Void Of Course<\/em>\u2014but I knew that I had read some of them already, so it was a book that uhm, reading the poems that I knew read well, and then put music to them. And if you\u2019re going to do that, you might as well just write songs themselves you know, and sing them. No matter how limited your technical voice is, you know, you could always sing them in one state or another. But uhm, somebody\u2019ll probably come along and find some way to make, you know, one thing. I think it\u2019s going to happen by, you know, one person will do one spoken word piece with music that\u2019ll bust out and floor everybody, you know. But to sustain a whole album of it, I doubt if it\u2019ll happen. You know, I don\u2019t think people are ready for that.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Pausing momentarily to take in this delightfully circuitous reply, I then refocused and, picking up the reference to Void Of Course<\/em>, piped in: “I find it interesting you just said that you had written it pretty fast, and yet the period spanned about four years, is that right?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

“Well, it spanned about four years\u2014according to the book\u2014but that\u2019s only because, uhm, the Kurt Cobain poem was written in 1994 and maybe two other poems. The Cobain poem was written after he died in 1994, you know, and that was really the oldest poem in it, uhm\u2026the rest of them I had\u2026all written like in the year and a half before I, uhm, handed in the manuscript. And actually, when after I handed in the manuscript to my editor, there\u2019s probably ten other poems in there that I gave him that I was working on, uhm, finishing second drafts of, while we were editing it. There was like fifty pages of stuff we took out; it was just a very prodigious period of writing poems for me, for the first time. I\u2019m mainly working on these novels. But\u2026when poems came, you might as well just go with them, so I did. You know, it was a life situation, a personal situation that kind of, uhm, made all this happen\u2026and it was my most\u2026profligate period of writing poetry since I was, you know, a young poet at St. Mark\u2019s.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Touching upon his days as a young poet fittingly led to a parallel between his experienced view of a creative process uniquely his own, and the lingering influence exerted by his early contemporaries. “Speaking of the word poem\u2026why the frequency of that generic title throughout the book? Is it an attempt to demonstrate any overarching lack of significance?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

No\u2026it wasn\u2019t meant to demonstrate anything, you know. I mean, I realized afterwards that there\u2019s a lot of poems, say, that Frank O\u2019Hara wrote\u2026if you look at his collected or selected poems even, that are just called \u2018Poem,\u2019 and they just refer to them through the first line. Like the poem that are on the album that are called \u2018Poem\u2019 in the book, most of them, fortunately, that we chose had titles, but we just use the first line as a title, you know\u2026\u2018Female as thunder, the air filled with thought, felony, drainage\u2026\u2019 Well, that was just the way to go in that sense, and that\u2019s the usual way you do it\u2014you go by the first line. I remember friends of mine telling me I was always good at doing titles for poems, you know. With this book, I wrote it so fast that I was writing notes or \u2018Poem,\u2019 you know, and that was it. And some poems are titled \u2018Lines,\u2019 and that\u2019s because I didn\u2019t even, you know, even think about it when I got, uhm, galleys back, you know, \u2018Lines.\u2019 Originally I was going to go further with it or rewrite it or something, but I decided OK, that\u2019s OK, but I forgot to really write a title or even change \u2018Lines\u2019 to \u2018Poems.\u2019 So it was just the first time I was writing on a computer you know and I liked that a lot. You could move the spacing around–you use the spacing to define how a poem should be read for the people that haven\u2019t heard you read it. You know, a short line, it slows down the poem. A long line speeds it up. You hang out a certain word to give it like a double entendre from the end of one paragraph–or is it the beginning of the next? Or stanza–I\u2019m in a prose frame of mind here. At any rate, that\u2019s what you\u2019re able to do so easily with a computer. So, writing on a computer, I actually really started to like it…you know, poetry in that sense–you know, being able to move things and cut and paste them around so easily. Otherwise, uhm, I always liked the idea of writing titles and stuff. John Ashbury once told me he wrote titles–when I was really young–that he always titled the poem before he wrote it, you know, he wrote from a title, which is very hard to imagine when you read his poems–they have nothing to do with the title. But he comes up with a title, then writes the poem. It\u2019s usually the opposite for me, unless it\u2019s very specific. You know, I spent a lot of time investing thought in titles. But, you know, the poems stand how they are–if I want to just call them \u2018Poem,\u2019 then it\u2019s OK.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

“I just got one more question for you, Jim,” I said, lifting my glasses straight up on my face. “just kind of an overall…it\u2019s a soul question: is death the ultimate reward for a lifetime of achievement? And what is your advice, if any, for people who aspire to use poetry for their own ends?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Well, uhm, I don\u2019t see how you could use…well, yes, you could use poetry for your own ends, I suppose. The question is: what would it get you? And then, as far as death being a reward for a lifetime of achievement…Ahh!! No, death…death sucks, man, you know. I mean, there are times I might think “Great,” you know, if I think I want to die, you know, I don\u2019t give a fuck about a lifetime of achievement, or a lifetime of failure or anything…I just want to get the fuck away, see what\u2019s happening over there. But most of the time I think, you know…Ahh! I don\u2019t want death being a reward for a lifetime of achievement. Death is just, you know, you die man. If you thought that way, I would have coordinated everything to have…but see, I always think, you know, my next work is going to be my best and stuff. That\u2019s kind of what I\u2019m saying in that Kurt Cobain poem, in that one section…which is kind of an impudent way to think. You know, I remember a review in Creem Magazine once, a fantastic review of the Catholic Boy<\/em> album that they kind of glommed in–cuz the Basketball Diaries<\/em> had just come out in paperback, mass-market paperback from Bantham. With the two of them together, they saw it as a whole renaissance and stuff. And they said in the interview if this guy died now, his work would be, you know, his legacy would be done…I don\u2019t believe that, but if I did die,…I would have died a lot prettier and I would have died with a lot more mystique happening to me, especially the way I died…the example for that is Jim Morrison, you know. I mean, did he want to do it by design? I love Jim Morrison\u2019s singing and stuff, and he\u2019s written some good lyrics. But basically I always thought he was really a terrific singer, and he had a great sense of…he had a poet\u2019s sense of phrasing, certainly. But, if that was the case, you know, you got to pick the right time to die in your career, and that\u2019s a stupid thing to do. Like Frank O\u2019Hara said, “You should die for love, not for poetry.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u00a91999 Frank DiCostanzo & Michael Workman<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Frank DiCostanzo & Michael WorkmanLumpen Times 8 May 1999 Exclusive: includes the entire Jim Carroll interview! On Saturday, May 8, diarist, musician and poet Jim Carroll made a rare appearance at Chicago night spot the Hothouse, 31 East Balbo, a spacious setting filled with Brazilian rhythms and flavor. He read from his newest collection, Void Of … Continue reading Jim Carroll: Caught in a Trap<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":4163,"menu_order":19,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"folder":[39,44],"class_list":["post-4464","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P9VlUH-1a0","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10156,"url":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/research\/performance-reviews\/jim-carroll-at-aladdin-theater-portland-or-1999-review-by-craig-giffen\/","url_meta":{"origin":4464,"position":0},"title":"Aladdin Theater, Portland, OR (1999)","author":"Cassie Carter","date":"June 5, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Jim Carroll at Aladdin TheaterPortland, OR, 2 October 1999Review by\u00a0Craig Giffen At the box office, the Aladdin Theater had a printout of upcoming shows with ticket prices & description of show. It was \"The Jim Carroll Band\", .... the first appearance in Oregon in 15 years. I can't remember if\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4036,"url":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/photos-video-audio\/press-photos\/","url_meta":{"origin":4464,"position":1},"title":"Press Photos","author":"Cassie Carter","date":"January 10, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"The photos on this page may be reprinted provided the photographers are credited. Photographer credit:Jim Carroll (1998) \u00a9Ray Lego\/Cut the Fat Jim Carroll (1998) \u00a9Ray Lego\/Cut the FatDownload Photographer credit:Jim Carroll (1998) \u00a9Ray Lego\/Cut the Fat Jim Carroll (1998) \u00a9Ray Lego\/Cut the FatDownload Photographer credit:Jim Carroll (1998) \u00a9Ray Lego\/Cut the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Jim Carroll (1998) \u00a9Ray Lego\/Cut the Fat","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/JC1998_bw_001.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/JC1998_bw_001.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/JC1998_bw_001.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4037,"url":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/photos-video-audio\/photo-gallery\/photos-of-jim-carroll\/","url_meta":{"origin":4464,"position":2},"title":"xxPhotos of Jim Carroll","author":"catholicboy.com","date":"January 10, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"If you have any good photos of Jim Carroll, please email them to me! Press Photos These photos may be reprinted (with photographer credits). Please do not reprint other photos on this site without reviewing the FAQs. xxxx Lorem ipsum XThe Catholic Boy Gets Blessed Lorem ipsum individual portraits Solo\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"Jim Carroll (1998) \u00a9Ray Lego\/Cut the Fat","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/JC1998_color_005.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/JC1998_color_005.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/JC1998_color_005.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4459,"url":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/research\/performance-reviews\/jim-carroll-at-40-watt\/","url_meta":{"origin":4464,"position":3},"title":"Jim Carroll at 40 Watt","author":"Cassie Carter","date":"January 10, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Home > Research > Performance Reviews > Review of Jim Carroll at 40 Watt (Athens, GA), 1996 Jim Carroll at 40 Watt Athens, GA, 12 April 1996 Review by Kati Baugh Shortly after 10:30 p.m. on April 12, 1996, I made my way to the 40-WattClub near the University of\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10358,"url":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/research\/performance-reviews\/jim-carroll-at-little-brothers-columbus-oh-8-november-1997-review-by-craig-fitzgerald\/","url_meta":{"origin":4464,"position":4},"title":"Jim Carroll at Little Brothers (1997)","author":"Cassie Carter","date":"June 11, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Jim Carroll at Little BrothersColumbus, OH, 8 November 1997Review by\u00a0Craig Fitzgerald My sister and her husband Jim and I drove 130 miles to see Jim Carroll on the raining Saturday night. Jim was to read at a small but well known Columbus club. We arrived at eight when the doors\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4163,"url":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/research\/feature-articles\/","url_meta":{"origin":4464,"position":5},"title":"Feature Articles","author":"catholicboy.com","date":"January 10, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Feature articles are general interest articles about Jim Carroll. Some of them include interviews and reviews and, as such, are also included in the Interviews and other areas within the Research Library of the site. These articles are arranged in chronological order. Ted Berrigan, \"Jim Carroll.\" Culture Hero 1.5 (1969).Poet\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4464"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8501,"href":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4464\/revisions\/8501"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.catholicboy.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/folder?post=4464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}