Review of Leonard Gontarek’s The Paris Poems Of Jim Morrison
January 13, 2021
The Paris Poems Of Jim Morrison
Moonstone Press
$10.00
You can purchase a copy here.
Reviewed by Abbey J. Porter
Noted Philadelphia poet Leonard Gontarek summons the spirit of the iconic front man of the 1960s rock band The Doors with his recently published book, The Paris Poems Of Jim Morrison. This collection—theoretically, the poems Morrison might have written if he hadn’t died in Paris in 1971—draws the reader into a fragmented dreamland in which the narrator struggles to know himself and his surroundings, in which there is “[m]ore there than it seems.”
The Doors began recording and performing in the mid-1960s. Jim Morrison, the band’s lead singer and songwriter, was heralded as both sex symbol and countercultural icon. But he was also something else: a poet. Morrison’s collection of poetry, An American Prayer, was published in 1970.
By 1971, Morrison was in a bad way. He’d been convicted of profanity and indecent exposure for his behavior during a concert and was facing jail time. And he’d developed a serious alcohol dependence. In March of that year, Morrison joined longtime girlfriend Pamela Courson in Paris, hoping to find an escape from his troubles and a chance to write. But several months later, on July 3, he died there at age 27 under dubious circumstances. Courson reportedly found him dead in their hotel room’s bathtub. The official cause of his death was listed as heart failure, but no autopsy was performed, and rumors surfaced of a possible heroin overdose. The cause of his demise remains a topic of speculation.
Morrison’s troubled nature is highlighted in Gontarek’s poems. In 43 pages of untitled free verse, in which it’s sometimes hard to tell where one poem ends and another begins, one perceives Gontarek’s Morrison to be lost in a landscape in which “[t]he signs are blank.” He seems to be at odds with his surroundings, as in the opening poem:
I never dress for the weather
I believe I am in hell
I am in Paris
I turn my collar up
I sip from my flask
The collection’s opening verses also give the impression of a narrator who is diminished: “I have failed, one wing hangs down.” And, as he muses later: “Could I ever see into things? There was a time I thought I could.”
The landscape here at times seem impenetrable. The narrator struggles to make sense of it—to find his way into it, or perhaps out. And words, instead of communicating, contribute to the fog: “The language here softens, everything, out of focus.” We glimpse an incoherent picture, much like the one the narrator describes as “[b]ad reception. Feeding back flickering images of a room.”
In some cases, Gontarek tosses disembodied words, images, and thoughts to the reader, giving the impression of poems that are perhaps incomplete, perhaps struggling to emerge: “Wouldn’t want. / Never. Knew. Want. The ship. Burning.”
This is a shifting, multilayered reality in which “what is behind things still waits behind things” and “[w]hat is revealed is revealed. What is hidden remains, small cold blue flames.” Gontarek’s narrator continues: “Everywhere I turn is something I don’t understand becoming a part of something else, combusting.”
The narrator seems to try to discern the truth in a world in which all is untrustworthy and appearances can be deceiving.
Passion and anger resemble each other…
Overcast days remind one of autumn
In reality, it is otherwise.
Within this unknowable landscape, the narrator is likewise unknowable and questions his own identity. He struggles to understand his own consciousness and asks, “What hand, opening and strange, comes out of these clothes.”
Seeking assurance of his own existence, Gontarek’s Morrison finds a welcome, orienting power even in his own name: “The scent is unmistakable. Jim.” And “Morrison. It holds me here holds me.”
Gontarek’s poems are rife with references to the natural world: flowers, birds, trees, grass, bodies of water. However, instead of being pure or trustworthy sources of salvation, Nature seems as suspect as everything else. Gontarek refers to an “old pond smell” … “The odor of river” … “The crow that scars the sky.”
The narrator is like an explorer who reports the rich findings of his senses, whether sight, scent or sensation.
Often, too, he refers to sadness. But running as a counterpoint to that sadness is his desire, which perhaps constitutes the heartbeat of the book—the desire to understand himself and his surroundings, to find his way. At times, the desire manifests as sexual.
Are you home now?
The earth is lonely.
Are you hungry for me?
Also hovering throughout the book is the topic of death, which emerges and re-emerges. Early on, the narrator reflects: “I don’t write too much about death. / I don’t write enough about it.” He suggests a positive view of death when he says, “All avenues lead to where pain ends.”
Gontarek’s Morrison acknowledges himself as an imperfect narrator, and perhaps an imperfect poet, when he tells readers,
I can only lead you to the cliff.
I’ll hobble behind swinging a lantern.
Pissing off a rock. Passing off shit as poetry
and god.
The Paris Poems Of Jim Morrison will be especially enjoyable to those familiar with Morrison and his story, as well as anyone interested in joining Gontarek’s Morrison in what could have—might have—been part of this legendary figure’s final journey.
Abbey J. Porter writes poetry and memoir about people, relationships, and life struggles. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Queens University of Charlotte, an MA in liberal studies from Villanova University, and a BA in English from Gettysburg College. Abbey works in communications and lives in Cheltenham, Pa., with her two dogs.