Jim Morrison

[breathtest]

I don't expect this thread to pick up many posts, but i thought i'd try anyway.

I was wondering what everybody thinks of Jim Morrison's poetry. He was the lead singer of The Doors, but his love was always for poetry and philosophy, and he was a very literary minded person. He published two volumes of poetry in his lifetime, but many more have been published since, from his many journals.

This is an example of his poetry, and he wrote this when he was fourteen.

When the still sea conspires an armour
and her sullen and aborted currents breed tiny monsters
True sailing is dead

Awkward instant and the first animal is jettisoned
Legs furiously pumping their stiff green gallop
And heads bob up
Poise
Delicate
Pause
Consent
In mute nostril agony
Carefully refined and sealed over.


So what does everybody think?

[herzog]

Horse Latitudes, a classic.

A majority of his lyrics could be looked upon as poetry in their own right, I suppose.

Excellent stuff.

[Alexander III]

I quite like, its very similar in style to Rimbaud's Illuminations, a series of linked vivid images which combine to convey complex emotions which have no precise one word symbol to express their significance. Well thats my take on it anyways.

His life is also very similar in style to that of the tragic hero, who explores vice and debauchery, and ends with a young death, drawing many parallels to John Walmot, Lord Byron, Rimbaud ect..

Do post more of his poems !

[breathtest]

From what i've read in biography's of Morrison, he was an extremely precocious kid. At the same sort of age he wrote Horse Platitudes he was known to have read philosophical texts such as The Birth of Tragedy and to have understood them better than his english teachers.

What i love about his poetry is its scope. Here's two poems as an example of what i mean as i can't explain it any better.

A man rakes leaves into
a heap in his yard, a pile,
& leans on his rake &
burns them utterly.
The fragrance fills the forest
children pause and heed the
smell, which will become
nostalgia in several years.


***


The hour of the wolf
has now ended. Cocks
crow. The world is built
up again, struggling in
darkness.

The child gives into night-
Mare, while the grown
Man fears his fear.

I must leave this island,
Struggling to be born
from blackness.

Fear the good deep dark
American Night.
Blessed is Night.

The flood has subsided
The movie panic & the
chauffered drive
Thru the suburbs

Wild folks in weird dress
by the side of the hiway.

(this is only part of a longer piece)

The difference between the two is huge. That's one of the things he was good at.


Cycle 1667 - if you want to read some of his poetry, you can find it online, just use google, i found some awhile back.

[breathtest]

herzog - i agree that a lot of his song lyrics were poetic, such as 'The cars crawl passed all stuffed with eyes / Streetlights shed their hollow glow / Your brain seems bruised with numb surprise / Still one place to go' from Soul Kitchen, and 'Let's swim to the moon / Lets climb thru the tide / Surrender to the waiting worlds that lap against our sides' from Moonlight Drive. How ever some of his song lyrics were far below par. I think most of his talent lay in poetry than in song writing. Although the Doors were awesome as a band.

[spookymulder93]

I never knew he wrote poetry. Only album of theirs I've listened to was the first.

[Sapphire]

About a year agoo I found a book with his poetry in the library. I found it at 20:00 and was still reading when the library closed at 24:00. I was definitely captivated
I do not really know how to talk about it. But he definitely had a way with words!

[breathtest]

Spookymulder - I prefer the best of albums. I think a lot of there songs just weren't anything special, but on the best of, pretty much all of them are amazing. I think you've been missing out on some quality songs by only listening to the first album, although that was their best.

Sapphire - I understand what you mean, it's quite difficult to understand a lot of his writings, but they are exceptional.


This is one of my favourite of his poems, easier to understand, but very interesting:

The voyeur, the peeper, the Peeping Tom, is a dark
comedian. He is repulsive in his dark anonymity,
in his secret invasion. He is pitifully alone.
But, strangely, he is able through this same silence
and concealment to make unknowing partner of
anyone
within his eye's range. This is his threat and
power.

There are no glass houses. The shades are drawn
and 'real' life begins. Some activities are impossible
in the open. And these secret events are the voyeur's
game. He seeks them out with his myriad army of
eyes - like the child's notion of a Deity who sees
all. 'Everything?' asks the child. 'Yes, every-
thing,' they answer, and the child is left to cope
with this divine intrusion.

[OrphanPip]

I like some of The Doors' music, but his poetry really doesn't do much for me.

There's something lacking about it, it feels kind of dry and doesn't engage me. The use of enjambment in the last one feels awkward to me, and overall the rhythm doesn't sit comfortably. Also, much of it feels cliche, and I find nothing particularly striking or memorable in the poems posted here.

[Buh4Bee]

Poetry and song lyrics, although closely related, are going to be different. I would assume that song lyrics can be more repetitive and simplistic than poetry, since they are accompanied by music. I don't know much about Morrison's poetry, but his music is awesome.

There is a movie The Doors (1991) that was terrific. Good pop-culture.

[breathtest]

Jersea - is that the movie by Oliver Stone? I enjoyed it but the other members of the doors said that it portrayed Morrison as a drunken jerk, even though that wasn't really who he was at all.

[Alexander III]

There is also a documentary with Johnny Depp as narrator which was made in 2009, its called "When You're Strange" Its very good and insightful.

[Buh4Bee]

I was with Oliver Stone. He was portrayed as a drug addict that was so narcissistic he couldn't function in conventional or normal society. I understood this as Morrison being represented as a mad artist.

[JBI]

Good music, meh poetry. He had a good voice, and the Doors had good style, but as a poet, without the music he is lacking.

[Jassy Melson]

I think Morrison is one among a dozen of the lead singers of the '60s who were also poets--Paul Simon and John Lennon among them. All of them were limited in that they had to force their poetry into rock lyrics that could be sung to the accompaniment of lead guitars and drums. Paul Simon was probably the best poet of them all.