Critical Essay | Critical Review by Publishers Weekly

Critical Review by Publishers Weekly

SOURCE: A review of Void of Course, in Publishers Weekly, Vol. 245, September 28, 1998, p. 96.

In the following brief review, the critic discusses the poems in Void of Course.

An alternately self-exposing and swaggering Bukowskian diarist, Carroll reinforces his rock-star-like pop culture niche with his latest volume of poetry, which somewhat resembles a compilation of power ballads. Given that Carroll’s fame was established by the beloved 1970's memoir of drug addiction The Basketball Diaries, it makes sense that his poetry [in Void of Course] works to further the author’s forever young and ostensibly hip public image, as in this ode to the late Kurt Cobain: “You should have talked more with the monkey / He’s always waiting to negotiate / I’m still paying him off … But Kurt … / Didn’t the thought you’d never write / another song / Another feverish line or riff / Make you...
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