Fear of Dreaming: The Selected Poems (Poets, Penguin)
by Jim Carroll
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jim CarrollEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1993-11-01
ISBN: 0140586954
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Book Reviews of Fear of Dreaming: The Selected Poems (Poets, Penguin)
Book Review: Subtle, powerful poetry
Summary: 5 Stars
Jim Carroll's poetry has appeared sporadically over the years in small, relatively difficult-to-locate collections ("Living At the Movies", "The Book of Nods"), so I was relieved to find this on the shelf. His work is an odd kind of majesty, a masterful coagulation of the early decadents, the modernists, the beats, stellar figures like Rimbaud and Baudelaire, yet with a voice all his own. He gracefully charts the map from humorous to solemn, sacred to profane, personal to universal without skipping a beat. He is a magician of images, and in the tradition of his predecessors weds seamlessly the most disconnected visions: "The ambulance passes/we sit up/pinned eyes of nuns that genuflect between stars/ambassadors on marble staircases in steam tropics..."Midnight" pg. 80). After having read "The Basketball Diaries" I feared that Carroll's poetry would be bitching and whining over his checkered and painful past, but nothing could be further from the truth. He seems to take the attitude of a grateful warrior to his time spent shooting dope, losing the friends he pays homage to without self pity: ("Some detectives in worn suits slide at my door/They told me Eddie was dead on Lexington and 103/stabbed in the jugular at mid-day/outside two automated hospital doors/He often walked East Harlem after dark, high on reds, calling out the black man/And I salute you, my brother. "New York City Variations" pg. 183).
Most of Carroll's poetry, though, is the product of his own imagination and only refers to his youth when necessary. He is obviously aware, though, of the parallels drawn between his and the chaotic life of Arthur Rimbaud with his enchanting prose pieces like "Rimbaud Goes To the Dentist". For all that he is not capitalizing on the success of "Basketball": you know just from reading the first few ("The Blue Pill", "The Distances") poems that Carroll would have become famous just by virtue of his talent and not his sordid autobiography.
This is a must for those who love raw, genuine poetry.
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