Jim Carroll (1950-2009)

Jim Carroll, the legendary author, poet and punk rocker died of a heart attack on Friday, September 11th. He was 60 years old.

Jim grew up in Manhattan, and as a boy he attended the elite Catholic schools that would figure prominently in his writing. It was while on a basketball scholarship at Trinity that Carroll began living a double life as a star athlete and a heroin addict. His addiction would drive him into prostitution, and he later chronicled this descent in his groundbreaking 1978 novel, The Basketball Diaries.

While still in his teens he was publishing his own pamphlets of poetry and making the rounds in the East Village coffee houses. He published his first book, Organic Trains, at 17 and it garnered praise from the likes of Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. The Paris Review published some of his poems and soon Jim Carroll was a rising star in the New York literary scene.

His fast-paced life would take many twists and turns, including a period where he worked in Andy Warhol's Factory. Jim's time in Warhol's orbit is immortalized on The Velvet Underground's Live At Max's Kansas City. He's the one heard in the background asking for a double Pernod at the legendary Manhattan nightclub.

For a while Jim lived with the "Godmother of Punk" Patti Smith and photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. He would write about it all in Forced Entries: The Downtown Diaries, 1971-1973.

After a well-received poetry reading onstage with Patti Smith, Jim decided to start his own group, The Jim Carroll Band. They signed a 3-record deal with Atlantic Records and their debut album, Catholic Boy was hailed by critics. It generated a college radio hit with its ode to dead friends, "People Who Died." Jim would later collaborate with a wide range of musicians and bands including Ray Manzarek of The Doors, Blue Oyster Cult, Pearl Jam and Rancid.

By the mid-1980s Jim was concentrating on writing poetry again. He published 1986's The Book Of Nods, and Fear Of Dreaming in 1993. In 1998 he put out one more collection, Void Of Course: Poems 1994-1997. In 2002 and 2003 he released 3 spoken word albums.

Up until his death, Jim had been working on his long-awaited novel, The Petting Zoo. According to published reports, he died at his writing desk, doing what he loved to do.

Photo by Stephen Spera

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