Jim Carroll, best known for the film adaptation of his autobiographical book The Basketball Diaries, was also an accomplished poet and punk. His last volume of poetry, Void of Course: Poems 1994-1997, was published eleven years before his death, though he hardly stopped creating in the time between.

Poem

Pay homage to the sorrows
Make your sadness graceful

If possible

Your confessions, as well

Elucidate it all.

It is right there

                             Like a stone
Half ocean smooth
Half-jagged by the shoreline's
                             Earth and wind