R.I.P. Jim Carroll

Poet laureate and punk rock icon Jim Carroll, whose life story was famously documented in his autobiography The Basketball Diaries, has died following a heart attack on Friday, September 11th in New York City. Carroll was 60. The New York Times reports. The Basketball Diaries — which detailed Carroll’s struggles with drug use as a teenager in the 1960s — depicts his fall from prep school basketball star to heroin addict who turned to prostitution, all before Carroll was even 17 years old. Besides the Basketball Diaries, Carroll’s other notable works include 4 Ups and 1 Down and 1973’s Living at the Movies. Irreplaceable, Carroll’s music anthem People Who Died a bona fide New York rock n’ roll classic.

Jim Carroll will be missed; his words will live on in perpetuity. Here is an excerpt from his profound piece "8 Fragments for Kurt Cobain"

Perhaps inside them
You could have found a threshold back to beauty's arms
Where it all began...

No matter that you felt betrayed by her

That is always the cost
As Frank said,
Of a young artist's remorseless passion

Which starts out as a kiss
And follows like a curse