Gaze Into the Abyss: The Poetry of Jim Morrison Paperback – September 3, 2015

As am admirer of Morrison's writings for many years. I believe that Cook did a fantastic study of the ins and outs of Morrison's psychological approach to his visionary quest to break on through to the different ways of seeing and feeling about our everyday surroundings. I highly praise Cook on giving us a deeper insight into Morrison's visionary quest making us see thing with a new pair of eyes.

Very well written critique of Jim Morrison's poetry. A look into his influences, believes and wicked imagery. "Gaze Into the Abyss" is a great place to go after you have fought your way through all the sensationalism and have read Morrison's poetry and want to dive a little deeper into his head. If you dare?Great read and much praise and thanks to Mr. Cook for opening our minds a little more and for discussing Jims poetry and not just his looks and actions. Well done.

Finally! A great interpreter of Jim Morrison's poetry. Many thanks to you Mr. Cook. David Shiang wrote a great for this - he is known as an "the world's leading expert" on Jim Morrison and The Doors, I would LOVE to hear this guy lecture on both topics sometime.

This book is beautifully written. It has insight and managed to portray the complexity of Morrison's character and poetry in an entertaining way.

For fans of Jim Morrison this is a very interesting collection of poetry. Recommended!

The most common question of Doors fans is, what do Jim Morrison’s poems mean? Poetry is different from other writing. In a novel you have at least two hundred pages to leisurely take your reader to your meaning. However, poetry is like painting, you have to use the words thickly to color the poem with meaning and that is why poetry strikes fear into those unaccustomed to the cadences and codes of the symbols and imagery. Add to that Jim Morrison intentionally made his poetry obscure. William Cook in his new book “Gaze into the Abyss: The Poetry of Jim Morrison”, gives us a good starting place in understanding Morrison’s poetry.“Gaze into the Abyss” starts where Jim Morrison’s poetry starts in his tyro works of “The Lords” and “The New Creatures”. The focus is mainly on “The New Creatures” since there is more to work with in that collection. “The Lords” is more a collection of aphorisms given a poetic context and taken by Morrison from a college paper he had written on film. As Cook promises early in the book he is successful in taking the myth of Jim Morrison rock star out of the equation to look at Morrison’s poetry nakedly.The poetry of Jim Morrison can be examined from many different angles: auto-biographical, lyrics, the Rimbaud of rock and roll (The Beatles and Bob Dylan also embraced Rimbaud), Nietzche’s influence, LSD, alchemy, anthropology, and mythology, most of which Cook touches on quickly in this slim volume.Cook takes on the obscurity of Morrison’s poetry and gives us a context and perhaps a Rosetta Stone of deciphering Morrison’s poems. Film. Morrison, of course was a film student so why wouldn’t he layer images upon each other in one medium and not in the other? Morrison also points the way when he said he“…was interested in film because, to me, it’s the closest approximation in art that we have to the actual flow of consciousness.” Another reason for the surreal imagery in Morrison’s poetry (aside from being influenced by surrealists such as Antonin Artaud) was Morrison’s experience of the world through the prism of the rock star may indeed be psychedelic. One who lived through the same experience, Robby Krieger, suggested any movie about The Doors be surrealistic.William Cook’s “Gaze into the Abyss: The Poetry of Jim Morrison” seems like a primer for those who want to answer the question, what do Jim Morrison’s poems mean? This short volume did touch on the keys to help readers decipher Morrison’s poetry and I found myself wanting more, but there is a plenty of ground to cover with Morrison’s poetry. This will not be the last book on Morrison’s poetry, and is a great place to start.Jim Cherry writes The Doors Examiner

William Cook takes the "Lizard King's" poetry and gives us the inside look on his thoughts. Morrison's poetry will always be remembered as memorable storms gazing over an open sky of pure imaginative.As for me reading poetry is an enjoyment of the word choice to explain ones metaphors. From all styles; Dadaism, Stanzas, free verse, etc. It amazes me and keeps me looking for new authors everyday.I went in reading "Gaze Into the Abyss" thinking it was going to be boring like trying to figure out a Robert Frost poem (like I did in High School for half a semester.) BUT! This was not that, William Cook has made me get a copy of Lords and New Creatures, as I only read Morrison's Wilderness collections. I will look back into this book for insight as I read Morrison's Lords and New Creatures. Thank You!

Well, it gave me more of an understanding where Jim was coming from and where he got a lot of his reptilian references from. I liked the Doors from when they first appeared in 1967. We had just done the Oedipus play at school and when I heard The End 's Oedipal references I thought this group was on a different path to the Hippie one; I have to hear more. I found his lyrics sometimes impenetrable, not being as intelligent as him and this book has helped me to understand them a bit better.