Wilderness: The Lost Writings, Vol. 1

“Listen, real poetry doesn’t say anything, it just ticks off the possibilities. Opens all the doors. You can walk through any one that suits you.” — Jim Morrison

As the lead singer and song writer for The Doors, Jim Morrison brought the poetry of the damned to rock’n’roll. As a poet, he infused verse with the wild lyricism and mesmerizing beat of rock. By the time of his death in 1971, Morrison had become one of the most haunting voices in the collective unconscious of America, echoed by performers such as Patti Smith.

This book, compiled from the Morrison literary estate by his beloved friends, presents Morrison’s unpublished work for the first time–poems that celebrate the juju of sex, the touring musician’s labyrinth of highways, airports, and motel corridors, and the shamanistic power of rock’n’roll, as well as photographs, drawings, facsimiles from Morrison’s diaries, and a self-interview that reveals him as he has never been revealed before. A genuine literary event, Wilderness is the last testament of a writer of liberating ferocity and tenderness whose tremendous impact on an entire generation is still being felt.

Cover photo by Frank Lisciandro
Cover design by Wendy Bass