Jim Morrison's Poetry is Bunk
I was sitting at the doctor's office today and noticed Jim Morrison's poetry books offered as light reading material while waiting. My doctor is a huge child of the 60's and is a big Doors fan. I can't assume that he hasn't stolen crap from Jim's gravesite in Paris.
I had always heard "Oh Jim Morrison was such a great poet." I figured it had to be because of his poetry book because the lyrics to the Doors songs were not poetic. Examples:
We chased our pleasure here Oh, moon of Alabama
Dug our treasures there We now must say goodbye
But can you still recall We've lost our good mama
The time we cried And must have whiskey, oh, you know why
Come on baby light my fire Lost in a Roman...wilderness of pain
Come on baby light my fire And all the children are insane
Trying to se the night on [what rhymes with fire?] fire All the children are insane
Waiting for the summer rain, yeah
Voltaire said "Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung." I will let Morrison slide on the poetry in song. It is tough to write a song with a catchy hook and still have it be poetic. Plus I like the Doors.
Then I read the poetry in his books, Wilderness and The American Night. I have decided those that find Jim to be a good poet were on the same acid he was on and probably smoked copious amounts of skunk weed. Examples:
Poem 1 Poem 2 Poem 3
Sirens Where'd you learn about No one thought up being;
Water Satan-out of a book he who thinks he has
Rain & Thunder Love?-out of a box Step forward
Jet from the base
Hot searing insect cry Poem 4
The frogs & crickets
Doors open & close An Angel runs
The smash of glass Thru the sudden light
The Soft Parade Thru the room
An accident A ghost precedes us
Rustle of silk, nylon A shadow follows us
Watering the dry grass And each time we stop
Fire We fall
Bells
Rattlesnake, whistles, castanets
Lawn mower
Good Humor man
Skates & wagons
Bikes
I decided to ask my doctor what he thought of Jim Morrison's poetry. Surprise! He loves it. He connects with it in a "deep spiritual way." The emotion captured by Jim is like the emotion my doctor feels on an everyday basis.
I recited the Sirens/water/Rain & Thunder poem to him, which seems to be free association on Jim's part ending in a line about the Good Humor man. That was my doctor's favorite poem because he can see Jim sitting in his LA room and looking out over the world and writing down what he sees. My argument is that wasn't poetry. There has to be some sort of word play, keen observations on every day occurrences or emotions. The recitation of what I see is not inherently poetry. It is a market list. Your laundry list of shit you have to accomplish that day is not poetry. I recited what I saw outside to illustrate my point.
Old lady on Jazzy
Flying rat
Horny housewife
Black SUV
Dirty Adult Bookstore
Street sweeper
All races on the street corner
a cornucopia of creeds gathering
Gas station
Street Light
He said "Man you are good, you should be a poet. I can relate to that poem because I know you wrote it in my office. I see those things everyday." Too much Acid for Dr. Lipschitz.
I had always heard "Oh Jim Morrison was such a great poet." I figured it had to be because of his poetry book because the lyrics to the Doors songs were not poetic. Examples:
We chased our pleasure here Oh, moon of Alabama
Dug our treasures there We now must say goodbye
But can you still recall We've lost our good mama
The time we cried And must have whiskey, oh, you know why
Come on baby light my fire Lost in a Roman...wilderness of pain
Come on baby light my fire And all the children are insane
Trying to se the night on [what rhymes with fire?] fire All the children are insane
Waiting for the summer rain, yeah
Voltaire said "Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung." I will let Morrison slide on the poetry in song. It is tough to write a song with a catchy hook and still have it be poetic. Plus I like the Doors.
Then I read the poetry in his books, Wilderness and The American Night. I have decided those that find Jim to be a good poet were on the same acid he was on and probably smoked copious amounts of skunk weed. Examples:
Poem 1 Poem 2 Poem 3
Sirens Where'd you learn about No one thought up being;
Water Satan-out of a book he who thinks he has
Rain & Thunder Love?-out of a box Step forward
Jet from the base
Hot searing insect cry Poem 4
The frogs & crickets
Doors open & close An Angel runs
The smash of glass Thru the sudden light
The Soft Parade Thru the room
An accident A ghost precedes us
Rustle of silk, nylon A shadow follows us
Watering the dry grass And each time we stop
Fire We fall
Bells
Rattlesnake, whistles, castanets
Lawn mower
Good Humor man
Skates & wagons
Bikes
I decided to ask my doctor what he thought of Jim Morrison's poetry. Surprise! He loves it. He connects with it in a "deep spiritual way." The emotion captured by Jim is like the emotion my doctor feels on an everyday basis.
I recited the Sirens/water/Rain & Thunder poem to him, which seems to be free association on Jim's part ending in a line about the Good Humor man. That was my doctor's favorite poem because he can see Jim sitting in his LA room and looking out over the world and writing down what he sees. My argument is that wasn't poetry. There has to be some sort of word play, keen observations on every day occurrences or emotions. The recitation of what I see is not inherently poetry. It is a market list. Your laundry list of shit you have to accomplish that day is not poetry. I recited what I saw outside to illustrate my point.
Old lady on Jazzy
Flying rat
Horny housewife
Black SUV
Dirty Adult Bookstore
Street sweeper
All races on the street corner
a cornucopia of creeds gathering
Gas station
Street Light
He said "Man you are good, you should be a poet. I can relate to that poem because I know you wrote it in my office. I see those things everyday." Too much Acid for Dr. Lipschitz.
"Alabama Song" was originally from an operetta. I prefer Morrison when he's paraphrasing Oedipus.
And light my fire was not written by Morrison
Jim wasn't a horrible poet. You have to remember that a lot of that material was published posthumously and were from scraps and soforth. So what they say are his poems might sometimes be, like you pointed out, just random observation and the like. However, if you have read "The Lords and the New Creatures" I'm sure you would find at least a couple of poems worthy of exerting some thought over. Certainly some of his lyrics are quite poetic, even in the constrained form of pop music verse. A good example is "Shaman's Blues", which seems to be him arguing/pleading with a woman who's dumped him, if you ask my opinion. God knows it certainly seems relevant to a relationship I had at one time. But it's not a direct exposition, it has a lot of metaphor in it. Another one is "My Eyes Have Seen You", which they talk about in "No One Here Gets Out Alive", the book by Jerry Hopkins. The book itself is full of factual errors, but I think some of their analysis of his imagery is worthy of reading.
In short, a lot of the so-called poems seem unfinished, and he probably would have turned out a lot more quality material if he hadn't died so young. I'd still recommend him to anyone, if for no other reason than even if you didn't find value in his poems, there weren't that many to read anyhow.
jim's poetry only connects with those who wish to submit.
Great drug assumption. I have never touched acid in my life and i still find his poetry amazing. Read The American Night and tell me thats not good.
I like Jim Morrison a lot. He is very talented and, frankly, I didn't know that he also writes poetry. I thought that he is dedicated only to music, not to poetry. Anyway, I am glad that he I have read something written by him, this way I will be more careful to the songs he sings.
I didn't know that Jim Morrison is also into poetry. Nice to hear that he possessed this talent also.
If you REALLY want to understand JDM's poetry, check out the book I wrote about it at Lulu.com titled "Into This House We're Born"
Ha ha! This is a funny story. I sympathize with your feelings about Jim Morrison's poetry, but I also think that anything that gets people to read poetry (even if it is awe of celebrity) has value. Thanks! (p.s. Keep writing!)