Prologue and Poems 1966-1971 Summary

Jim Morrison's "Wilderness: The Lost Writings of Jim Morrison, Volume I" records the poetry Morrison composed in journals he kept beginning in 1966. The book opens with a prologue in which Morrison interviews himself, and talks about the value of the exercise of posing questions to oneself and forcing oneself to search for the answer. He also discusses his love of literature and poetry, and his desire to be a poet more than anything else he may be. He says he considers poetry to be the only reliable way of accurately preserving a culture: when art, movies and novels are destroyed, people are still able to recall entire poems by memory. He prizes its ability to open every door of possibility instead of committing the imagination to only one outcome. He hopes his poetry will free people to...