Florida Born American Poet Jim Morrison (1943–1971) | News Break
American poet and Doors lead singer James Douglas Morrison was born on December 8, 1943 in Melbourne, Florida. Jim grew up in a house still standing in Melbourne and the property and his writings intrigue intellectual rock and roll pilgrims on YouTube fifty (50) years after the poet’s death: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOqrJK6vD-k.
Jim always wanted to be known as poet and intellectual so it is no surprise a collection of his treasure trove of collected primary source writings is set to be published by Harper Collins later this year: Massive New Collection of Jim Morrison Writings Due Out in June: Rolling Stone . Jim’s previously published spoken word books of poems, epigrams, aphorisms, and essays include: The Lords and New Creatures (1969), An American Prayer (1970), Wilderness: The Lost Writings of Jim Morrison: Volume 1 (1988), The American Night: The Lost Writings of Jim Morrison: Volume 2 (1990). From Wilderness, Power:
“I can make the earth stop in its tracks. I made the blue cars go away. I can make myself invisible or small. I can become gigantic and reach the farthest things. I can change the course of nature. I can place myself anywhere in space or time. I can summon the dead. I can perceive events on other worlds, in my deepest inner mind, & in the minds of others. I can. I am.”
An American Prayer was presented at poetry readings in 1969 and recorded on Jim’s birthday in 1970. The limited edition leather bound poetry book was made into a spoken word poetry album with the Doors providing background music and soundscapes in 1978, seven (7) years after Jim’s death. Jim always loved the visionary printed word in the style of William Blake and Arthur Rimbaud but like a true artist he saw visions and heard voices the result of the artists’s self-interview.
Also set for release is a graphic novel or comic book of the events that led to Jim’s legal problems at the infamous Miami concert in 1969 for which Jim was later pardoned by Governor of Florida Charlie Crist in 2010. A graphic novel or comic book of Miami 1969 is set for a March 2021 release date: The Doors Share Excerpt From ‘Morrison Hotel’ Comic Chronicling Infamous Miami 1969 Show (yahoo.com). As a side note, Elvis, the Doors, and Two Live Crew were all censored in Florida
After the Miami trial in 1970, Jim was under a great deal of stress arguing for the cause of artistic freedom of expression and he often said some people loved to hate the Doors “because we are that good.” The Doors were an unusual cosmic band and Jim was an unusual performer but he always maintained the Doors were equal even though audiences came to see Jim perform shamanistic rituals.
Jim knew paying audiences wanted a spectacle but he hoped people would see him for what he always was — -a poetic intellectual artist and creator. Born in Florida and reloacted to Calfornia, Jim made a name for himself on the West Coast, but after the Doors’ first album in 1967, Jim and the electic psychadelic band became a controversial national and international media sensation and a stark contrast to what the Summer of Love first presented.
The Doors Illustrated History (1983) by Jewish assistant to the Doors Danny Sugerman features many of the press clippings on the Doors and their iconic singer, lyricist, and provocateur. Sugerman also wrote about Jim’s life and death with Jerry Hopkins in No One Here Gets Out Alive (1980).
Jim Morrison once said in an interview Jews often do not drink like his fellow Irish travelers possibly due to their history of persecution and need for self-preservation. The Doors In Their Own Words (1988) show exactly how intelligent Jim and the Doors were which most people in the music business and beyond immediately noticed and still remember.
It is fifty (50) years since Jim Morrison died in Paris France after taking a health break on July 3, 1971. Jim had lung disease or asthma his entire life and after recording the blues based LA Woman album, he coughed up blood before leaving the United States. He experienced more lung problems in Paris.
Spending his time in Paris writing from a bohemian Jewish neighborhood, Jim bought his life-long love Pamela Courson a gold Star of David before slipping away to the other side. Jim is even more popular now in 2021 because he was a classic timeless intellectual imbued with ancient and futuristic insights not normally seen from a rock and roll star. This is because Jim Morrison was much more than a cool mysterious singer and handsome star women loved and men admired.
Interviews with Jim Morrison and all who knew him confirm Jim Morrison was a deeply thoughtful genius poet, artist, and intellectual. Jim’s sister mentioned in an interview, Jim was always drawing illustrations of mystic or occult subjects and writing poems and short stories often around a single word so Jim had an amazing vocabulary. If you research books from Jim’s massive library and reading list you would discover Jim loved poetry, philosophy, literature, the humanities, and natural and social sciences. He loved studying mass media, social psychology, and making films like HWY.
If you get a chance check out the many interviews with Jim on YouTube. Jim’s last recorded interview on February 15, 1971 with Rolling Stone editor Ben Fong-Torres, like all of Jim’s concise interviews, is extremely illuminating on how deeply original he thought about any subject presented. Freud would have a lot to say about his preoccupation with the mysteries of life and death. Creativity is an alternative to the death instinct.
Jim’s father said in an interview you can also find on YouTube he had placed on his son Jim’s tombstone in Paris a quote from Greek philosophy explaining Jim was always true to his soul calling. Jim’s sister also said in the same interview Jim would never have sacrificed his principles and she knew he would always remain committed to being a Beatnik writer even if it meant he remain poor. Jim was deeply influenced by famous avant-garde poets, writers, and dramatists such as Antoin Artaud, Allen Ginsberg, and Michael McClure. Jim had many Jewish, Irish, Italian, and other friends and his managers and producers all said he was usually the nicest guy you would ever want to know. Jim liked unusual people and he often became friends with many of the cutting-edge literary figures he read and admired first as a precocious young boy such as Beatnik publisher and City Lights of San Francisco bookstore owner Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
Jim Morrison is most famous as lead singer of the Doors but he may also now endure as an eloquent poet, philospher, and intellectual. He met Ray Manzarek on the beach in Venice, Calfornia after Jim left St. Petersburg Community College and Clearwater, Florida where a local artist recently hand-painted doors from Jim’s apartment in Clearwater. Jim attended Florida State University and lived in a building across the street from a graveyard where a pagan healer or witch was buried facing west. Jim also married in a Wiccan ceremony though Pamela Courson was the one he always returned to on Love Street. Jim shined like a star in the dark night and his writings will only become more of a beacon for those with voracious appetites for knowledge and experience. Jim even attended UCLA Film School as a graduate student with George Lucas and Oliver Stone who directed the Doors movie (1991).
What would Jim have done if he lived more than a short span of twenty-seven (27) years? Perhaps a closer inspection of his collected writings and interviews will tell us all more about what could have been. But as Jim put it, he thought he would not live a long life but shoot across the sky like a comet and be gone. But his printed poetry and video and audio recordings live forever.
Originally published at https://www.newsbreak.com.
