SOURCE: A review of Living at the Movies, in Poetry, Vol. 125, No. 3, November, 1974, pp. 162-65.

In the following review, Malanga favorably assesses Carroll's Living at the Movies, commenting on the original technique and confident voice employed in the collection. Malanga also compares Carroll to well-known poet Frank O'Hara.

The great thing about the work of a genuine poet is the atmosphere which it creates in the mind of the reader. This is as difficult to define as it is impossible to miss. It has a great deal to do with technique and with style, but only in so far as they are an integral part of the feeling and thinking that go to make up a poet’s work. But it is as equally difficult to fail to realize it, when a writer turns out to be a genuine poet. Jim Carroll at twenty-five is a genuine poet...