Since the birth of rock ‘n’ roll, lyrics and poetry have played an important role. Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison, Lou Reed and Patti Smith are a few of rock ‘n’ roll’s legendary poets. With the release of Jim Carroll’s latest album Pools of Mercury (Mercury), he should be added to the esteemed list.

Carroll’s writing talent became known when he published the novel The Basketball Diaries as a teenager. This book described in detail his addiction to heroin and the life of crime and hustling he led to support his drug habit. After gaining early success as a poet, he left New York for San Francisco.

On the West Coast, he began to set his poems to music with the Jim Carroll band, which had a near-hit in the early 1980s with the dirge-anthem “People Who Died.” When his record contract ended in the mid-1980s, Carroll essentially retired from rock ‘n’ roll for 14 years. In 1991, he returned to music with Praying Mantis, a spoken word album. His latest release, Pools of Mercury, contains both spoken word and songs.

Carroll’s musical style is a blend of New York’s finest. His lyrics resemble the poeticism of Patti Smith’s lyrics, while his vocal style resembles Lou Reed’s.

The 15 songs on the album are divided equally between pure spoken word set to background music and rock ‘n’ roll songs. The first half of the album is stronger, with the urgent and driving “Train Surfing” and the haunting “Desert Town.”

The second half of the album passes by in a blur until the last two songs. “The Beast Within” flows with a menacing atmosphere that perfectly compliments Carroll’s whispered delivery. The final track, “8 Fragments for Kurt Cobain,” stands out on the album. Set to haunting background music, Carroll eulogizes Cobain and shows, through Cobain’s life, the dangers of fame. Carroll also illustrates the perils of addiction by paralleling Cobain’s life with his own. The end result is a powerful ode with a warning.

Carroll’s Pools of Mercury contains moving poetry that elevates rock to an art form.