Inspiration found through The Doors - syndicated from @NaughtaPoet
I did not know I was writing poetry until I was 25. Jim Morrison had to teach me that my words qualified. That moment in time changed the course of my life.
The
Virgin
Journals
byTravis Laurence Naught
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THE OPENING OF THE TRUNK (by Jim Morrison)
"Moment of inner freedom
when the mind is opened and the
infinite universe revealed
& the soul is left to wander
dazed & confus'd searching
here & there for teachers & friends."
Now, nearly four years later, I have quit my day job as a volunteer coach with the Eastern Washington University basketball team and have become a published poetry author. The Virgin Journals, available on Amazon and through Barnes and Noble, is a traditionally published volume that falls under the category of POD (print on demand) and did not cost me a dime out of pocket to get put on the market. The raw truths and blunt honesty appealed to ASD Publishing and they took a chance on me.
DECRIPTION OF ME (by Travis Laurence Naught)
"Tender innocence wrapped in a certain wickedness
A lifetime of experience yet kept in blessed ignorance"
The Doors music set that train in motion. A boss of mine in the Disability Support Services office at Eastern visited with me over the course of a summer about reading and writing and he kept talking about this musical group from the '60s during our conversations. He finally lent me one of their greatest hits compilations and the Oliver Stone movie. I listened through the CD once, thought it was very OK, but decided to give the movie a try.
THE ANATOMY OF ROCK (excerpt ... by Jim Morrison)
"... I couldn't get out of my seat.
The road was littered
w/ dead jitterbugs ..."
Blew my mind! There I was, 25 year-old college graduate and master's student, watching a movie about this bottle rocket of a human and all the things he experienced by age 27. Multiple forms of fame and infamy, an insatiable appetite for sex and drugs and probably the most depressed yet brilliant individual of his time. Their music entered my brain differently with visual stimulation as a backer and instantly kicked me into paying attention. Hollywood made this movie, I was keenly aware of that, so I set out for more true information in books.
UNTITLED (by Jim Morrison)
"There was preserved
in her
The fresh miracle
of
surprise"
My Morrison/The Doors library is of moderate size ... some would say obsessive ... but I have only moved through about two-thirds of the books. The jump off point for me was Light My Fire by Ray Manzarek. Where better to start than the words of a surviving member? It fueled my new-found intrigue and pointed me more directly towards Jim Morrison as someone to learn from.
NAUGHT LIKE HIM (by Travis Laurence Naught)
"A little Morrison in me, but it's Naught blood influenced ..."
Throughout all of my reading, listening and ruminating about the man I have learned that a person can find out a plethora of positive and negative information about themselves through reading about others. I knew that Jim died at 27 from a culmination of bad decisions that eventually caught up with him even through his brilliance. This gave me a roadmap of life past the pinnacle of experience.
ON THE ROAD (excerpt ... by Jack Kerouac)
"the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars."
I wanted, and continue to want, to live my life at the peak. Reading the three major published volumes of Jim's poetry fanned my flame for this man and lifestyle even more. Morrison constantly cited amazing works of literary achievement by other authors and I started to branch out and search for those. Jack Kerouac, Michael McClure, Allen Ginsberg and of course Aldous Huxley all contributed to helping Morrison in his craft and each gave me new insights to my own style as well.
NOTE (excerpt ... by Michael McClure)
"... The sin
Of emptiness
Is born of steady progress.
Let
Us
Laugh and scream
Our way
To fine-edged embarrassment. ..."
I still pick up books by Jack Kerouac whenever I am able. So far I've read three of his novels; On the Road, The Dharma Bums & Big Sur and I currently have Desolation Angels waiting to get started. He has even inspired me to start playing with a longer form that will turn into either a novella or fully fledged novel if I'm lucky.
AFTERMATH: The Philosophy of the Beat Generation (excerpt ... by Jack Kerouac)
"We had our mystic heroes and wrote, nay sung novels about them, erected long poems celebrating the new 'angels' of the American underground"
All of them wrote with a purpose but none of them with intention to play by any set of rules. That excited me! Free verse, honest prose, filthy, sometimes obscene but always true to one's self. These poets and authors gave me a definition for the things that were flowing out of my mind every time I wrote.
SONG (excerpt ... by Allen Ginsberg)
"The weight of the world
is love.
Under the burden
of solitude,
under the burden
of dissatisfaction
the weight,
the weight we carry
is love ..."
Hopefully someone will use my writing as a similar map in order to live better than I have. My ultimate compliment and dream is for someone to list me among their writing inspirations one day.
