Living at the Movies

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Living at the Movies is Jim Carroll’s first major collection of poetry. The back cover of the Penguin edition states:

“In these poems, all written before the age of twenty-two, Carroll shows an uncanny virtuosity. His power and poisoned purity are reminiscent of Arthur Rimbaud, and, like the strongest poets of the New York School, Carroll transforms the everyday details of city life into poetry. In language at once delicate, hallucinatory, and menacing, his major themes–love, friendship, the exquisite pains and pleasures of drugs, and above all, the ever-present city–emerge in an atmosphere where dreams and reality mingle on equal terms….”

The Penguin edition, with a cover featuring a photograph of Carroll, is widely available. Also, all of the poems in Living at the Movies are reprinted in Fear of Dreaming. The Penguin edition is a great reading edition.

If you are a collector, look at the Grossman edition, which features cover art by Larry Rivers and was issued in both hardcover and paperback; both are hard to find.

Selected poems from Living at the Movies have been translated to German.

See Also:

• First Edition
• Translations
• Collecting