Customer Reviews

Wilderness: The Lost Writings of Jim Morrison, Volume 1

5 star:		(36)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is a collection of Mojo's poems, and as all poems and writings, they provide insight into interests, perceptions, experiences and latent attitudes towards occurrences. There are occasional B & W stills of Jim, and copies of the original poems in his own handwriting. Those familiar with his life and career will be able to tie in some of them to what you already know of him, while others provide insight into his thoughts about certain things. Here are two of my favorites:

LAMERICA
In my humble opinion "Lamerica" reveals his thoughts on suburban sprawl, encroaching development, and the never-ending tendency for humans to destroy the places where they live. How true then (Viking and explorers who extracted resources). And today in modern times: the "blue maps," being the back-roads of America off of the main interstates (hidden connections).....ending with the last 4 lines that is "end-all," or result.

LAMERICA
Trade routes
guidelines
the Vikings & explorers
discoveres
the unconscious

a map of the states
the blue hiways
beauty of a map
hidden connections
fast trampled forest

madness in a whisper
neon crackle
the hiss of tires
a city growls

rich, vast & sullen
like a slow monster
come to fat
& die

Here's another. More subjective. The curious to learn and experience coupled with wanderlust might interpret this in a personalized way, like I did.

THE OPENING OF THE TRUNK
moment of inner freedom
when the mind is opened
& the infinite universe revealed
& the sould is left to wander
dazed and confus'd searching
here and there for teachers and friends

Jim Morrison

"Wilderness" is a wonderful book of poetry no matter who wrote it. Jim Morrison was interesting to say the least, but his poems really stand on their own. The poems are beautiful, honest, and intriguing and cover a wide range of topics from women to music to America to growing-up. That being said, they offer a candid look at one of rock music's most infamous characters. Though often portrayed as a talentless drunk, the book is proof of the wonderful, sensitive artist that he really was. The style is slightly reminiscent of Beat poetry with beautiful phrases and words placed in specific ways that are visually effective. In addition to the poetry, the book also contains a two-page "self-interview" in which Jim explains kind of how he got into writing and why he loves poetry. "Listen," he says, "real poetry doesn't say anything, it just ticks off the possibilities. Opens all doors. You can walk through any one that suits you." Really, if you are even remotely interested in poetry or Jim Morrison get this book. I promise you won't regret it.

Wilderness is a wonderful book for anyone who loves to write, or deeply enjoys reading poetry. It is quite sad that some people in our society automatically think that Morrison's poetry is trash just because of the fact that he was a rock star as well as a poet. Morrison wrote beautifully and the depth that he concentrated into each one of his works shines through. This is a great book for anyone who appreciates Morrison or good poetry, I highly recommend it.

The words and images in this book have a way with your mind. They stick in your subconscious as if they are the stories your ancestors told around the campfire.

Jim Morrison's poetry is a mix of Greek mythology, and Shamanic mysticism. Throw in some books from long ago that are deep in the blood of mankind, and you end up with Morrison.

His poetry does not talk about himself. Instead he writes about archetypical themes in a modern setting. His setting was the 60's, which provided a lot of material: Vietnam, new drugs, the Women's Rights Movement, and the Civil Rights Movement.

All of these things were ripping at the fabric of America (and humanity). Morrison's poetry attacks these chaotic times head on. However, he writes as if he were a 19th century poet in the mold of Lord Byron, or Arthur Rimbaud. He achieved his goal, and a place in history.

I have had the book Wilderness for many y ears now and I simply love it. Not only was Jim a rock star, but he was a magnificent poet. I have read some reviews where they said you had to be a drugged out loser in order to understand his poetry, which is so very NOT true. There are many different types of people who love Morrison's poetry, and you don't have to high to read it and understand where this man was coming from. It came from deep personal feelings. I find that amazing, when a person can share the happenenings surrounding his life with the rest of the world. Not too many people have this gift, and I admire Jim Morrison very much for sharing his life, music and beautiful words with us. I will cherish his writings for eternity.

I don't think Jim would've wanted this particular book to have been published. Unlike his excellent Lords and New Creatures, which Jim himself published, Wilderness was published by his estate after his death. Everything in Jim's will went to his wife Pamela, but after she died it got transferred to her parents. Thus, Pamela's mom and dad get the royalties for his lost writings. Some people might think they published it just to make money, but I doubt that. Obviously some people enjoy Wilderness, despite the unpolished feel of it... which is to say the least about it. I guess the title of the book is appropriate: Lost Writings.

But as I started saying earlier, I don't think Jim would've published this material until after it was completed. He was a man who wanted complete artistic control/freedom. One time he became furious when "Light My Fire" was used for a television commercial. He took his work seriously. Overall I think this book was a blow beneath the belt. It would be like taking someone's unfinished manuscript for a novel and publishing it anyway, without editing, and without it being finished. I guess, however, it serves as a nice glimpse of what Jim was working on. Actually in some parts it's quite good, but that's rare. Most of the material is untitled, short, and confusing.

"Wilderness", fitting some what messily between "The Lords and the New Creatures" and "The American Night" as the centerpiece of Jim Morrison's eternaly unfinished poetic opus, offers us a fleeting glimpse into the best--and worst--parts of a visionary psyche. Morrison, unlike so many of the poetic idols (Shelley, Byron, Blake) he never lived long enough to equal (and perhaps transcend?) was not afraid to expose, explore and cut right down the middle any experience, line of thought, or moments of madness he had. This works to both his benefit and detriment in his poetry as it did in his short life.

More than the larger than life persona he tries to project in his early poems: ("Power)", Morrison is a conceptual and verbal magician, able to pack the weirdest and most minute philosophical observations into a few lines: "A man rakes leaves into a heap in his yard, a pile, and leans on his rake and burns them utterly/The fragrance fills the forest/children pause and heed the smell/which will become nostalgia in several years" (pg. 17). This is not all "intoxicated" poetry, not by any means. Beneath all the poetic personas Morrison adopts through these crashing, manically curious experimental dives into the extremes of consciousness, one personality emerges again and again: that of the prophet. In the tradition of Artaud and Rimbaud, Morrison as poet gives us a less polished but equally powerful diagnosis of a corrupt and diseased culture through his Berriganesque visions of hippiedom, his visionary observations of America as a nation and his place in it("What am I doing in the bullring arena?"), tributes to fallen friends ("Ode To Brian Jones While Thinking of LA"),
and the recognition of his own fate in "As I Look Back".

There is something else in this poetry behind the surreal streams of consciousness and the subtle calls to personal change, something which is so quiet and undetectable at first, and then which simply explodes in his retrospectives and self evaluations: vicious despair. One can feel the rumbling chaos of the poet's life just by reading him for any extended period of time and it is not shocking when at long last the work simply stops.

That said, this is some of the best poetry of the 60's generation, and not only that generation. Morrison had the kind of voice one finds a few times every hundred years, and the ultimate tragedy is that he never gave himself the chance to nurture it to maturity. A must, absolute must read for lovers of poetry that falls outside the pedestrian and comfortably middle class.

... I think Morrison is very finely accomplished, marginalized, misused, and credits more serious scholarship. Nothing said in his music is not here, and better, with Wilderness: the fascination with individual existence (and sex) threatened by modern urban life and (political) death; ritual initiations into or "intimations" of the sense of free grace; experience as a series of sensations impressed in briefly intensified moments; the vulnerability of innocence and simplicity (children, animals, minorities); the enchantment of single words; reality as an accumulation of personal obsessions, might start my list. The diction, rhythm, careful measuring of textual interplays against pauses or transitions, and self-conscious modulations and inflections give his works the charm and the impression of an almost (although often vulgar) eloquence of fin-de-siecle or decadent authors played contrapuntally against the sceptical remove of English Modernists, drawing mainly from French Naturalists. Many of Morrison's poems have the effect of film-clips in an avant-garde cinema, of absorbed intellectualism reflecting self-referentially on multi-media aesthetics. His descriptive powers are best when most abstractly evocative, as in lines under "Airport" on Vietnam and post-war oppression reading "A truth too horrible to name / Only a loose puking moan / could frame its dark interiors [...] under its dull friendly terror." Or in his historical recounting of electric pop music's impact on American youth in "The Anatomy of Rock" where Morrison sets his atmosphere producing line "The climate altered like a / visible dance." Quite a few idiosyncratic interests and characteristic purposes could be discussed here. Quotes from Rimbaud and Blake, allusions to arcane physiological theories and post-modern philosophies conduce to the speculative testing of the dimensions-and-bounds-of-reality feeling pervasive of everything recorded by Morrison. His real originality resides in the sociological and anthropological ethnologies and mythologies, as well as the amorous, glamorous use of unusual words, sparse (semi-parsed)syntax, and graphically arranged composition. The piece beginning "Sirens" and the other triggered with the word "disciple" are completely unique in their Joyce-telegraphs-Mallarme style. Morrison was the first to bring me as a newly turned teen from Edgar Poe in the bookstore to Baudelaire and Rimbaud. His drunk and drug-addict legends should not obstruct his ideas from being relayed or his feelings read. Morrison introduces connections capable of leading you to the last "doors of perception" where Kafka's guards momentarily step outside, leaving you free to enter as you wish.

Wilderness is a wonderful poetry book that is very touching and deep. If you like Jim Morrison - get this. If you like poetry - get this. If you like having deep thoughts - get this! I love this book and read the poems over and over again...you won't be disappointed.

I picked this book up with skepticism, poetry from a famous rocker, such a cliche. There are so many of them out there with poetry books. What surprised me is how deep his poetry is. It makes you think and actually try to get into his mind to find secret messages and trap doors. There are several previous comments that rate this book lower than 5 starts because it is hard to understand. Well, poetry is supposed to be hard to understand. It is supposed to make you think. For what other purpose would it exist?