The Book of Nods by Jim Carroll

The Book of Nods Reviews

• 
  Jon Vreeland

  I love this book. I still pick it up now and then and read a page or 2 or 3; it’s done wonders for me, that’s all I can really say.
• 
  Duc

  One of the first book of poetry which got me interested in Gerald Manley Hopkins. I carried this book during my high school years and attempt to write poetry which got published in my high school literary journal. The painting on the cover is by Will. I decided to apply for the design position and was in charge of the illustration. I have not had a poem published since. I still wrote them for my self. I remember having a period of block after that one poem appearing in school.
  "Of Rodents sealed in kegs of blue water..." is a line I remember from the collection although I can seem to find the poem later. Did I make up this image after reading the entire collection?
  
  Oubliette is a word I had to look up. It means dungeon. It has to do with a deer and it's eyes being the portal to a locked dungeon. Or did I make that up too, I can't remember.
  
  The New York Variation is much more vivid. Through the poet's eyes, street lights become alien sperm hanging over the road. There is a sense of perforation through out the landscape.
• 
  Patrice

  After my long journey through an epic Stendhal novel I decided that I could read a shorter book of poetry. I found The Book of Nods at the most amazing book store in all of the land. The Friends of the Library Bookstore is my Juneau version of Powell's but much less expensive and in my opinion even cooler.
  
  Jim Carroll is of course famous for his punk rock autobiography The Basketball Diaries and his band's celebrated 1980 album, "Catholic Boy".
  
  The most notable poem in this collection:
  
  I drank cough syrup in alcoves
  of vast men's rooms in Grand Central Station
  The eyes of broken commuters leaned
  against me like tender knives.
  
  And I took trains
  to wealthy suburbs to walk the streets
  and summon up clap from queenly town daughters.
  
  I settled in Rye at midnight
  walking until dawn, the tall reeds
  near the cemetary were fingers
  that beckoned me to lay.
  
  And with the sun I set
  on the graves of soldiers dead from the Revolution
  and understood there the hilarity of fear.
  
  
• 
  Zoe

  great poems by the master of nods
• 
  Ted

  I read this because I enjoyed his earlier work, but this one... not so much.
• 
  Stan

  Pure Genius! Have read over and over.