Today the doors of all projection booths are made

of steel,

does the theatre keep out light or does it keep in darkness?

The intriguing quote above was the first thing I sought after originally buying THE LORDS AND THE NEW CREATURES in 1970, a hardback with dustcover ($3.95). And the quote wasn’t there! In subsequent editions over the years it never has appeared; I’ve checked. Because of a magazine article I’d read in May 1969 I knew it existed, and was missing. The only reason I bought that magazine was it published excerpts from James (dontcallmejim) Douglas Morrison‘s privately-printed poetry collection The Lords/Notes on Vision. I wanted to check it out since The Celebration of the Lizard had been an epiphany for me as a 15-year-old. The Doors single-handedly introduced another kid to an art form called poetry. Also west coast cool jazz instrumentation, though I didn’t know that in 1968.

Eventually I found out three pages from The Lords/Notes on Vision had been accidentally omitted from THE LORDS AND THE NEW CREATURES. The blame lay in the nature of Morrison’s own privately-printed The Lords/Notes on Vision (Western Lithograph'spring 1969'). It appeared as 82 unnumbered unbound loose leaf pages, intended to be read in any order the reader chose, no title page, all packaged in a snazzy button & string portfolio---Simon & Shuster published their edition based on a portfolio missing those three pages. In Morrison's privately printed The Lords, the 82 pages were cleverly packaged, looking like important documents in a diplomatic pouch. The 8.5 x 11.5 inch blue portfolio fastened in back with a long red ribbon wound around a cardboard button. Only 100 were produced (a replica with a title page later circulated as well but details are scant). Morrison gave away those portfolios to friends---nowadays they can command between $3000 and $10,000. Judging from the elaborate portfolio/contents, the original printing/production cost of The Lords/Notes on Vision in 1969 was easily $125.

That’s just one reason THE LORDS AND THE NEW CREATURES is such a bargain, missing pages or not. Another reason is Morrison’s second collection The New Creatures, privately-printed in ‘late spring 1969,’ is included with The Lords/Notes on Vision in the generous THE LORDS AND THE NEW CREATURES. Nice; Morrison’s first two self-published works under one cover (and it doesn’t cost three large). Originally, The New Creatures was 88 bound pages with a 6 x 9 inch gold embossed brown cardboard cover and black tape binding, 100 copies only, also printed by Western Lithograph. This second volume fetches thousands of bucks now, like Morrison's first book. If you can find/afford one.

In the summer of 1970 Western Lithograph printed Morrison's third and final privately-published poetry collection: An American Prayer by Jim (not James Douglas) Morrison. It actually resembles a small prayer book from church. The 4 x 5 inch burgundy brownish book is 40 pages long, a whopping 500 copies rolled off the press. The contents are the title poem in four long parts, nothing from An American Prayer appears in THE LORDS AND THE NEW CREATURES. For 'Morrison compleat' fans I suggest an online search for the 1000-word article he wrote in 1968 for EYE Magazine, it reads exactly like his poetry and does NOT appear in our book on review or Wilderness or The American Night.

So, where the rubber hits the road is Mr. Mojo Risin’ a genius poet? No, but he’s far better than one would expect, equal to or better than many 20th century poets he listed as influences like Gary Snyder and Michael McClure. I’ll hazard the opinion he rivals the legendary Rimbaud as well (in France not the Americas). Rimbaud’s collected poetry left me thoroughly nonplussed when I finally sourced it, reminiscent of bathroom wall scribbling (no wonder he’s not in the library). Morrison’s not in the same league however as heavyweights T.S. Eliot, Yevtushenko, Cummings or Frost---had he lived to be 70 who knows what heights he may have reached. He seldom wrote verse poetry, was often pithy to the point of wasting paper, and numerous ‘musings’ in THE LORDS AND THE NEW CREATURES are nothing more than notes taken during a college filmmaking class. Even so, Morrison’s defined style is as evocative, vivid and stimulating as any Beat poet I’ve read: Corso, Ferlinghetti, Ginsberg, et al.

Morrison employs a consistent shorthand throughout THE LORDS AND THE NEW CREATURES and the two posthumous collections Wilderness and The American Night, one I've never seen him deviate from. He always used an ampersand instead of the word ‘and’; thru for through; and the word ‘with’ was always written as w/. I found these akin to Gary Snyder’s kisst and drippt contractions. To some readers these will be tropes, to others, conceits. While the lizard king was alive the rock press damned his poetic ambitions as pretentious, don’t believe it. Don’t expect any heavy revelations or keen personal insights from James (dontcallmejim) Douglas Morrison's poetry either but do buckle up for an entertaining excursion in the English language, an interesting, refreshing take on a neglected art form.

To all you poets out there, keep scratching those quill pen nibs on the vellum, you’re helping beautify the world. Live well. Enjoy. Peace.

“Do you often

stop and whisper

in Saturday’s shore?”

This book is written with an intensity that truly reflects the era in which it was created.

It is heavily influenced by the works and ideas of William Blake and Aldous Huxley, which gives it a unique and profound quality.

The book is full of non-linear ideas that can be quite challenging to understand at first glance.

In fact, I believe that to fully appreciate this book, it will require more than one re-read.

However, for fans of Jim Morrison, this book is a must-read.

It captures the same spirit of rebellion and exploration that Morrison was known for, and offers a unique perspective on life and the human condition.

Overall, this is a book that is well worth the time and effort it takes to read and understand.

Morrison's writing is truly remarkable as it elicits a plethora of emotions. It is simply impossible not to be deeply affected when delving into his work.

Specifically, the section titled 'The Lords' has a profound impact. It starts to stir up feelings of anxiety within me, along with a hint of maliciousness. I also find myself spaced out, as if the very edge of something unknown is encroaching upon me.

Despite the intensity of these emotions, it makes for an absolutely wonderful and quick read. Morrison's ability to evoke such a wide range of feelings in the reader is a testament to his extraordinary talent as a writer.

His words have the power to transport us to another realm, where we experience a gamut of emotions that we may not have otherwise encountered. It is this unique quality of his writing that keeps us coming back for more, eager to explore the depths of his literary world.

What a pleasant surprise!

I am not a die-hard Jim Morrison fan. It's not that I don't like him; rather, I simply don't know him or his work extremely well. But now, I find myself strongly tempted to embark on a deep exploration.

This is actually two books combined. I would classify both as poetry, yet the first one contains a great deal of writing that feels more natural, as if thoughts were hastily jotted down. It's beautiful, atmospheric, and interesting, but not as conventionally poetic as the second book.

I marked a lot of poems by dog-earing the pages. There is something profoundly evocative in these writings, and the recurring themes appeal to me. These themes include humid heat, magick, sexual energy, the city, cinema, the sacred, and the wild.

Surprisingly, a significant portion of it is also timeless. Almost all of it is truly stunning, leaving a lasting impression on the reader.

Funnily enough,

you should be able to get a good idea of what you’re getting here before you start reading.

This collection combines the only two books of poetry that were published during Jim Morrison’s turbulent lifetime.

These two books offer a unique glimpse into the mind and soul of the iconic musician.

Morrison’s poetry is as powerful and passionate as his music, filled with vivid imagery and raw emotions.

Readers will be able to explore the themes that Morrison was so passionate about, such as love, death, and the human condition.

Whether you’re a die-hard fan of The Doors or simply interested in exploring the work of a talented poet, this collection is sure to delight.

So, pick up this book, sit back, and let Jim Morrison’s words transport you to another world.

Unsurprisingly cerebral and often impenetrable, Morrison's dyad seems to be a tonality split down the line of what /is/ in a literal sense of theory, and what should be, in an artistic lens of reality.

That is to say, he uses a more conventional (though still inevitably esoteric) voice to explain the nature of his subject as a theoretical, historical and conceptual matter in the first half ("The Lords") and a fully abstract seemingly-stream-of-consciousness voice to describe the living, breathing circumstances of these ideas for people or cultures in the second portion ("The New Creatures.").

The subject, as far as I can discern, is the nature of the modern form, cinema, which acts distinctly from art forms. It is not only an inherent subject composed of different attributes but also in terms of its role in evolving or not evolving society and those responsible.

Morrison calmly makes many controversial arguments on the nature of cinema. The most striking is his supposition that it, in fact, is not art, more akin, in his words, to comics, chess, tarot cards, or tattoos. He argues that art forms are created as an experience of feeling and expression for both the creator and the observer, and that art exists in a pure form as it is not mechanically veiled. Cinema, he claims, is not an art because its aim is to hide its craftsmanship. A director, in virtually all cases, goes to great lengths to hide the camera, tracks, boom pole, and light stands from the viewers, whereas a painter has no machinations to hide brush strokes and a sculptor has no need to hide marble.

This is because at its core, a foundational concept of cinema is to create a seamless simulacrum, a synthetic experience real enough to "fool" the audience into believing it to be true. A painter, by contrast, does not attempt to convince a viewer that they are "in" the painting. Morrison postulates that the true ancestor of cinema is not necessarily the foundational art forms but "magic" in the sense of illusions, mechanical inventions to deceive and make the audience marvel at craftsmanship, to trick them into believing a falsehood, panoramas, dioramas, and, inevitably, cinema's literal ancestor, the Nickelodeon - a gimmicky toy to see photographs move.

It is with this that Morrison arrives at the purpose of cinema. Cinema, the escape, the diversion, is separating us from living our lives. It is a pacification, and its purpose, as he puts it, is a projection on our prison walls that keeps us in place. The titular Lords are those who can create the cinema, those who craft the experience simulacrum, the architects of the Matrix if you will. The complexity and precision of his language make it vague as to whether this applies to political leaders or filmmakers or both, or worse yet, their actions together. But what is clear is a lamentation, or maybe a hesitation or at the least a reticence, that the form is a deceitful tool that keeps the masses under impressions.

Morrison notes that as a craft, film splits into two distinct categories: Phantasmagoria, to fool and envelop the senses, and a Peepshow, to be a spectator and be aroused. And in this concession, he suggests that perhaps the two forms serve to condition spectators into enjoyment of the simulation of something rather than the possession, to be stimulated by looking, not touching, to be told you have when you don't.

Morrison somewhat conversely refers to cinema as the "last erotic art." As he describes it, these alchemies and magics come from the notion of trying to create something out of nowhere or the impossible. Where a statue comes from marble naturally, gold does not come from copper without the (impossible) intervention of a man. This attempt to create something out of nothing is a call to the nature of life, Morrison argues, as trees grow and seas form and animals breed, this is an attempted extension.

That imitation furthers or is furthered by Morrison's assertion that it is wrong to assume Cinema is the craft of women. It is important to note that Morrison was friends with the legendary Agnes Varda, and that this is not an exclusionary misogynistic command but a philosophical statement on purpose. He claims that cinema is an attempt at copulation or creation, that men envy the innate power of women to create life, and thus the desire to craft cinema rather than the desire to consume it.

Conversely, Morrison refers to this alchemy as a collective experience, perhaps the descendant of the Shaman, wherein a leader attempts to induce a group through a spiritual, cleansing journey as a community. Perhaps this is an ancestor of the cinema.

With all other ideas at play, Morrison postulates, briefly, that cinema is an antiseptic to the fear of death. That the temporal art, forever recorded and forever viewable, not only allows us to capture fleeting moments but will survive without us.

This is all prominently the first half. The second half of the book presents difficult discernments. Often aloof versed poetry that I can thus far only gather as a reflection of the circumstances pertaining to the theory of the first half - an illustration through abstraction. Repeated patterns of violent conflict treated passively, invasive conquering, decay, and distraction appear through the poems in different forms, perhaps a notion related to these ideas of cinema, perhaps meant only to exist on their own merits; the two were originally published in separate volumes.

I'm conflicted at the heady thoughts displayed. Ultimately Morrison is right. The nature of cinema as a craft of deception should not, and cannot be ignored. It is a form of fulfillment, of fantasy, of pacification when used in these manners. But film is also, in a sense, a literature, a form. Where magic exists with the system in the real world, that is, tangible, it is subject to the systems of physics, chemistry, biology. What one creates as a deceptive device does not need to follow the rules of prior deceptive devices - it only has to work mechanically in the real world and successfully deceive. It is built on a canon of prior engineering but ultimately can stand independent.

Cinema is, in fact, linguistic. It uses a form that has developed since the turn of the last two centuries to make arguments, statements, propositions. The ability to communicate ideas and themes through abstraction relies on a grammatical system like spoken or written language. While for artistic merit some of these rules can be broken, the rules exist to be followed to communicate ideas. This communion of information does not exist in the deceptive forms.

One might argue that this use of cinematic grammar is hidden behind the deception of abstraction, that the use of symbolism and parallelism is inherently a deception. But I would argue that in fact, at its core, the filmmakers ultimately do want you to understand how it is made. It is not the mechanical craftsmanship that matters; a painter does not leave the corner of the canvas unpainted so as to let the viewer see it was made on canvas, he paints it in entirety, just as a filmmaker must craft his world in its entirety to show the great meaning to decipher - not unlike the use of abstract language in poetry to create an idea beyond the literal means.

It is in this that cinema is truly an art - a creator uses the combination of conventions and grammar and ingenuity and expression to reflect, or share, or imprint. It is the dissemination of a thesis or a feeling, abstract or rigid, experimental or narrative, vague or precise, through control and flourished use of many splendorous dimensions: color, association, composition, sound, music, performance, and ultimately, temporality. It is that cinema is the marriage of a new form, a new extension, a new order: art and magic coming together, the grand, inevitable communion of the power of art and the power of illusion: the reflection of life and the deception of life.

This is man's greatest power, and as such, can be used for wonderful or horrifying means. Cinema is art, but not like it's ever been before. Maybe that's what they're talking about when they say, "this is where the magic comes in."

Addendum |

Ultimately, and in different contexts, Morrison has also mused that cinema is the most totalitarian of art forms, as it combines total control and the combination of all others, and that it has a greatness in that the canon of the medium is so myopic in comparison to the millennia-old arts that there is ironically no authority on it, and any willing and determined can contribute. Morrison notes in the jacket of the book that in spite of these statements, his plans had he lived were to create films.

Meh. This collection is really only for die-hard Doors fans.

I, myself, am a die-hard Doors fan, yet I still don't find a whole lot that is truly worthwhile in this collection.

Sure, it's nice to have it sitting on my shelf, adding a touch of Doors memorabilia to my collection.

But when it comes to the actual content, it just doesn't quite measure up.

Maybe there are a few rare tracks or interesting liner notes, but overall, it doesn't offer enough to really justify its purchase for anyone other than the most dedicated fans.

It's a bit of a disappointment, to be honest.

I was hoping for more from this collection, but unfortunately, it just didn't deliver.

The statement ""The appeal of cinema lies in the fear of death." is truly brilliant poetry that seems to emerge from a beautiful soul. It's a profound thought that makes one stop and reflect. I find myself deeply in love with the fact that I am still able to experience his words, even though he has passed away. There's a certain melancholy in this realization, a longing for a time when he was alive. Just imagine if I could have been alive during his era, to have witnessed his thoughts and ideas unfold in real time. It would have been an amazing experience. However, even though that's not possible, his words continue to have a powerful impact on me and, I'm sure, on many others as well.

At first, I was extremely excited to gain some profound insights into Jim Morrison’s mind.

However, after carefully reading his poetry collections that are compiled here, I must admit that I was rather disappointed.

Most of the poems seemed to make very little sense, and they were filled with a plethora of imagery that required meticulous deciphering.

Undoubtedly, his mind was indeed very interesting and unique, but unfortunately, I didn't really enjoy the reading experience all that much.

The complexity and ambiguity of his poems, while perhaps a testament to his creative genius, made it difficult for me to fully engage and appreciate the works on a deeper level.

Nonetheless, I still respect Jim Morrison's contributions to the world of poetry and his ability to express his thoughts and emotions in such an idiosyncratic way.

I firmly believe that Jim Morrison's approach to poetry bore a resemblance to the ancient Oriental method expounded by Wei T'ai in the 11th century. Wei T'ai asserted that "Poetry presents the thing to convey the feeling. It should be precise about the thing and reticent about the feeling. For once the mind responds and connects with the thing, the feeling shows in words, and this is how poetry deeply affects us. If the poet directly presents overwhelming feelings and holds nothing back for an aftertaste, he stirs us superficially. He cannot make our hands and feet involuntarily wave and tap in time, let alone strengthen morality and refine culture, set heaven and earth in motion, and call up spirits!"

Morrison himself mentioned this about poetry in an interview: "Listen, real poetry doesn't say anything; it just lists the possibilities. It opens all doors. You can walk through any one that suits you... and that's why poetry appeals to me so much - because it's so eternal. As long as there are people, they can remember words and combinations of words. Nothing else can survive a holocaust but poetry and songs. No one can remember an entire novel. No one can describe a film, a piece of sculpture, a painting, but as long as there are human beings, songs and poetry can continue."

Morrison has had a lasting influence on my work for over 20 years. I recall classes in graduate school where his poems or name would come up, always in a dismissive manner. Yet, his poetry books have been among the highest sellers of all time in that genre and continue to be so. Morrison was Blakean in poetic sensibility and Nietzschian in philosophy, a terrifying combination if you think about it. He sought to break free from the "Mind Forged Manacles" that Blake spoke of and also desired a "World as a will to power and nothing more" as Nietzsche mentioned.

There is something eternal and powerfully visionary about Morrison's work that endures. He was and still is a controversial figure, a poet who attempted to re-create the theater of Artaud in a way that would influence later performers like Alice Cooper and Marilyn Manson. I believe that Morrison's contribution to modern poetry is far more significant than he is currently being credited for in the Academy.

* Notes about Morrison regarding his poetry by the Poet Michael McClure: "One of the things I like about this biography is that it shows that Jim knew himself to be a poet. That was the basis of my friendship and brotherhood with him. I know of no better poet of Jim's generation. Few poets have been such public figures or entertainers (perhaps Mayakovsky in Russia in the twenties and thirties), and none have had so brief or so powerful a career."

WOAH….

This book is truly a trip! It made absolutely no sense, yet it was just beautiful.

It seems to be filled with more philosophical ideas rather than traditional poems.

Sometimes, there would just be a single sentence on a page, presented in a trippy free style.

It is VERY trippy indeed.

The experience of reading it is like a wild adventure, leaving you with a mix of emotions and thoughts.

You might find yourself scratching your head one moment and being in awe the next.

It's a book that challenges your perception and takes you on a journey through the author's unique mind.

With its combination of strange and wonderful elements, it's sure to leave a lasting impression.

I was approximately 12 years old when the movie The Doors was released. I watched it repeatedly on VHS. I was completely fascinated by how the movie portrayed Jim Morrison and the band. What truly intrigued me even more were Jim's lyrics in his songs. The music itself was also extremely enjoyable to listen to. This movie had a profound impact on me as it inspired me to start keeping a journal. Just like Jim Morrison, I would jot down some of the thoughts that randomly floated in my head.

What I really liked about this collection of "poems" was that they were not written in a traditional manner. For the most part, they did not have a specific rhyme scheme, nor were they in the form of a limerick or a haiku. Instead, they were written in the exact same style that I would use when writing in my own journal. It felt like a natural and genuine expression of my inner thoughts and feelings.

This experience of writing in my journal and being inspired by the movie The Doors has stayed with me throughout the years. It has become a way for me to document my life and my journey of self-discovery.