User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
HAPPY POETRY MONTH!
april is national poetry month,
so here come thirty floats!
the cynics here will call this plan
a shameless grab for votes.
and maybe there’s some truth to that—
i do love validation,
but charitably consider it
a rhyme-y celebration.
i don’t intend to flood your feed—
i’ll just post one a day.
endure four weeks of reruns
and then it will be may!
********************************************
fulfilling book riot's 2018 read harder challenge task #1: A book published posthumouslyI PRAY FOR COURAGEI pray for courage
Now I'm old
To greet the sickness
And the cold
I pray for courage
In the night
To bear the burden
Make it light
I pray for courage
In the time
When suffering comes and
Starts to climb
I pray for courage
At the end
To see death coming
As a friend
i mean, it’s leonard cohen, and it’s the last leonard cohen book we’re ever going to get, so even though i didn’t breathlessly love every single poem, lyric, scrawled note-to-self he may have been planning to polish at a later date, it gets five stars for legacy.
this book covers a great chunk of time, and some of the early writing here does in fact become something else later in his career; there’s even evidence of that occurring within this collection - echoes, phrases repurposed, the underghosts of familiar songs peeking out elsewhere.
if there had to be a farewell at all, this is a fitting one - the whole range of his writing is on display; all of his wit and erotic spirituality, his self-deprecation and his gratitude, his respect and his delight in the fluidity of language.
the book is almost like being at a memorial ceremony - there are humorous moments to stave off getting too gloomy or somber:
I sincerely hope
you have not
come to believe,
that simply because
you ran off & got
married behind
my back, you
are somehow
entitled to keep
my tape measure
***
GRATEFULThe huge mauve jacaranda tree
down the street on South Tremaine
in full bloom
two stories high
It made me so happy
And then
the first cherries of the season
at the Palisades Farmers Market
Sunday morning
“What a blessing!”
I exclaimed to Anjani
And then the samples on waxed paper
of the banana cream cake
and the coconut cream cake
I am not a lover of pastry
but I recognized the genius of the baker
and touched my hat to her
A slight chill in the air
seemed to polish the sunlight
and confer the status of beauty
to every object I beheld
Faces bosoms fruits pickles green eggs
newborn babies
in clever expensive harnesses
I am so grateful
to my new anti-depressant
***
and also the gentle regret and wistfulness of remembrances:
We will be forgiven
the crummy things
we did to one another
because we
didn’t enjoy them
We’ll be leaving now
we’ll be leaving
for a good long time
and we want to say goodnight
we want to say goodnight
we want to say farewell
We had a little love
we had it for a while
It wasn’t quite enough
but thank you anyhow
Thank you for your kindness
in the field
and thank you for your kindness
in the room
The horses ran away
but we were not to blame
and when they
turned so beautiful
in their silver flight
it wasn’t our idea
at least it wasn’t mine
I want to be with other people
now I’m growing old
I want to be another drunk
who’s given up the bottle
I want to watch the lonely men
who still go out with women
I want to see the bridal gown
cover up the sequins
This is my very night of nights
the past was a rehearsal
***
You must have heard it in my voice
the sound that I no longer love you
I would never disguise that sound
I would never do that to you
O shining one
you have moved beyond my love
you have turned your face to others
I was not strong enough for this test
I turned away
I wear an iron collar
and I give my chain to anyone
but I never pretend that they are you
O shining one
who held my spirit like a match
in your cupped hands
while I thought I was warming you
O shining one
who teaches with her absence
***
it’s a beautiful collection, and so much better than the janked-up scansion and garbage word-salad passing itself off as poetry these days. oops, who said that?
also, i am choosing to believe, since there is precedence, that leonard cohen wrote this one about me. i refuse to be dissuaded from this belief, so don’t send me any documentation about some “other” karen with whom leonard cohen had a more deep and abiding relationship than the one we had, or even that there is another karen in the world out there, if there is. i’m not hearing it LALALALALAAAAAAAA:
Karen’s beauty is very great
it lies on her heart like a paperweight
She haunts the edges of her beauty
like a ghost on sentry duty
If beauty is the motherland
she lives on the furthest strand
Her back toward the capitol
that the pilgrims call so beautiful
She hears them make a joyous sound
but she cannot turn around
The lover’s song and the victim’s rack
they soar and creak behind her back
Through her beauty many pass
like penitents on broken glass
But once inside there is no cure
for hearts so wounded at the door
Trying to find a place to kneel
between the poets of pain
Trying to find a world to feel
that feels like the world again
My darling says her love is real
then why does she complain
***
there’s not much more to say - if you like leonard cohen, you will like this book. if you don’t like leonard cohen, i’m sorry you are such a broken person.
************************************
oooh, goodreads choice awards semifinalist for best poetry 2018! what will happen?if lang leav wins over leonard cohen, i will burn down the world.
***********************************
a story that is one-half trueme when i did not win the goodreads giveaway for this book:
me when connor surprised me by having it shipped to my house the very same day:
one million ♥s
come to my blog!
Rating: really liked it
A true talent never dies.
Farewell 'My Secret Life', 'The Partisan', 'Nevermind'...Christmas has come early this year for me. A postmortem edition of one of the most revered contemporary magicians of the word!
Choosing between reading and not reading this one is no choice at all! A must read and a must reread god knows how many times.
Q:
On rare occasions
The power was given me
To send waves of emotion
through the world. (c)
Q:
Let's say that on that lucky night
I found my house in order
and I could slip away unseen
tho' burning with desire
Escaping down a secret stair
I cross into the forest
the night is dark but I am safe -
my house at last in order
But luck or not, I do it right
and no one sees me leaving
hidden, blind and secret night -
my heart the only beacon
But O the beacon lights my way
more surely than the sun,
And She is waiting for me here -
of all and all the only One ... (c)
Q:
And now that I kneel
At the edge of my years
Let me fall through the mirror of love
And the things that I know
Let them drift like the snow
Let me dwell in the light that's above
In the radiant light
Where there's day and there's night
And truth is the widest embrace
That includes what is lost
Includes what is found
What you write and what you erase... (c)
Q:
I was always working steady
But I never called it art
I was funding my depression
Meeting Jesus reading Marx ...
It was nothing, it was business
But it left an ugly mark
So I've come here to revisit
What happens to the heart (c)
Q:
My guitar stood up today
and leaped into my arms to play
a Spanish tune for dancers proud
to stamp their feet and cry aloud
against the fate that bends us down
beneath the thorny bloody crown
of sickness, age, and paranoid
delusions I, for one, cannot avoid (c)
Rating: really liked it
I don’t want to greet
the morning light
with a night like this
in my heart soul
Have mercy on those shadows
that fall in love with shadows
The Observer wasn’t kidding when it called Leonard Cohen ‘the last word in love and despair’. This final collection from Cohen has an introduction written by his son Adam, who mentions that “In the last months of his life, despite severe physical limitations, Leonard Cohen made selections for what would be his final volume of poems.”
There are three sections: The first has 63 poems, ranging from the sublime to the ‘meh’ to the so-odd-it-has-to-be-genius; the second features the poems that became lyrics from his remarkable last four albums; and the third is an eclectic selection of writings and doodlings from Cohen’s notebooks.
In short, a great overview of his oeuvre, despite some odd repetitions. The least interesting section, for me, were the album poems, as any fan is quite familiar with the songs themselves. The strongest section is definitely the notebook entries, as it presents Cohen in a raw and unedited light that is tender and revealing.
Rating: really liked it
I like the way he always talk about sad love like he is standing between regreting how he loved and glad how he never loved before.
someone I always share quotes and poetries with, him after reading these said, "𝐈𝐭'𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐫, 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐬𝐞𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮".
Rating: really liked it
“. . . evidence of a burning soul. . .” Adam Cohen, about The Flame, the last writings of his father, Leonard Cohen
I have had Leonard Cohen’s last (? Maybe they will dig up more?) collection of poetry/lyrics/notebook thoughts by my bedside for many weeks now. It’s a beautiful book produced by Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, including sketches Cohen made of himself and many women he has known. Most of the poems are about love, written late, evidence of a great life (and love life) ended without regret. But he knows he’s in decline, and notes that, too.
The best Goodreads review is of course by Karen; check it out.
Of course, at the end, these pieces are not his very best writing, but if you love Cohen, you want to know his last will and testament, and I have enjoyed it. And included are the lyrics from his last albums, too. Though interiority has always been central for Cohen, he’s mostly talking to himself in this book, with an awareness that we are reading over his shoulder, or after he is gone. Occasionally I pick up the book and read a poem or two. As with Dylan, he’s less good on the page without his music. But his themes of love and death, sex and laughter and despair, they’re all here, and I am glad I have it. I’ll keep it close to me, to keep reading as I listen and learn.
There’s some humor:
I sincerely hope
you have not
come to believe,
that simply because
you ran off & got
married behind
my back, you
are somehow
entitled to keep
my tape measure
And some insight:
And now that I kneel
At the edge of my years
Let me fall through the mirror of love
And the things that I know
Let them drift like the snow
Let me dwell in the light that's above
In the radiant light
Where there's day and there's night
And truth is the widest embrace
That includes what is lost
Includes what is found
What you write and what you erase.
Here's a complete one:
Antique Song
Too old, too old to play the part,
Too old, God only knows!
I’ll keep the little silver heart,
The red and folded rose.
And in the arms of someone strong
You’ll have what we had none.
I’ll finish up my winter song
For you. It’s almost done.
But oh! the kisses that we kissed,
That swept me to the shore
Of seas where hardly I exist,
Except to kiss you more.
I have the little silver heart,
The red and folded rose.
The one you gave me at the start.
The other at the close.
He waited for you all night long.
Go run to him, go run.
I’ll finish up my winter song,
For you. It’s almost done.
A couple of his lovelier songs, though you would do well to listen to several of them:
Bird on a Wire:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8fT7...
Joan of Arc:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPf5K...
Rating: really liked it
You came to me
You wear your widow clothes
I ask who are you mourning for
you say, The man you were before
The man you were before
I loved you
I remember him
Didn't he live
on an island in
the Mediterranean sea
with a mandate from God
to enter the dark~~~~~
"... we're busted in the blinding lights of Closing Time."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-0lV...
Rating: really liked it
As a big Leonard Cohen fan, I loved this collection of poems, lyrics, notes, and drawings. When you love an artist and their work this much, it can be hard to be objective-you end up treasuring every little glimpse into the author's life and work, especially after they have passed.
The Flame is a generous collection filled with many poems, the lyrics to his last four albums, and extensive notes from his journals including many revealing passages from throughout his long career. His poem about Kanye West, 'Kanye West is Not Picasso,' was very entertaining. Like one writer at Slate.com, I think the poem is a tribute, not a diss; it is Leonard having fun with the nature of egos in rap and poetry, both his own and Kanye's.
It was wonderful to hear Leonard's voice again, and a pleasure to revisit the lyrics to his later period masterpieces: 'Old Ideas,' 'Popular Problems,' and 'You Want it Darker.' This book was a lot of fun.
Rating: really liked it
The memorable last collection of poetry from Leonard Cohen, who began life as a poet and continued to his last breath. The book is divided into enigmatic sections only he would understand: 'Poems' including subsections titled 'Old Ideas', 'Popular Problems', 'You Want it Darker'--the names of his final three albums-- and 'Leonard and Peter,' a poet's exchange of a verse argument in texts; 'Lyrics' and 'Selections from the Notebooks'... which are also poems. Dozens of self-portraits and drawings of women accompany it all.
In the forward to this big, varied collection, his son Adam said that the writing of these poems and the collecting of the book occupied the last years of Cohen's life. In the end, "Writing was his reason for being," As for the title, he said. "There are many themes and words that repeat throughout my father's work: frozen, broken, naked, fire and flame."
Of course, flame. Flame is desire, the spirit within the matter, that's what Cohen is all about--the human moment, inspiration, yearning, also the flame that goes out...
I fell in love with L.Cohen listening to his first album, that dark poetry, and on the album cover a woman in chains in the flames, reaching heavenwards... that fire, burning within it, reaching up to God, a woman of course--Cohen is nothing if not one of the great romantics... the anima in the flames. That intensity and beauty, fire, darkness and light, man's brokenness and desire, the presence of God which he spelled G-d in the sanctity of the name, his gratitude for the love of women, the Sisters of Mercy, admittedly often undeserved. The sense of being undeserving of the richness of the world. His bitterness and darkness is here too, as it's a portrait of a man racked and torn between the two poles of being--love's rapture and loss, a world both beautiful and fiendish, both of which are God. It's all here. All of it.
The poems are not uniformly fine, and none, I think, is great all the way through like the verse of Sexton or Plath or Eliot, but there are stanzas and lines that grip you that hard, as hard as any L. Cohen song. What a treasurehouse! The poems tend to short, rhythmic lines and often with echoes of rhyme., of love and despair, honest, self-aware, loss and departures, the brutal sweetness of existence. Here's just a small example, from the middle of a long poem called Never Mind:
"...The High Indifference
Some call Fate
But we had Names
More intimate
Names so deep
and Names so true
They're blood to me
They're dust to you
There is no need
That this survive
There's truth that lives
There's truth that dies.
Never mind
Never mind
I live the life
I left behind..."
I hear his voice in every poem, often there's the rhythmic echo of "Take this Waltz' 'this waltz, this waltz, this waltz, this waltz...' it's stuck in my head. "Thanks for the Dance"--one of Cohen's wonderful late songs--could well be another title for the book--rueful, grateful, an edge of loss...
At the end, the editors have appended Cohen's speech when he received the Prince of Asturias prize from Spain, where he talks about Lorca having been his muse:
"As I grew older, I understood that instructions came with this voice... the instructions were never to lament casually. And if one is to express the great inevitable defeat [wow!] that awaits us all, it must be done with in the strict confines of beauty and dignity."
What a fabulous gift (Valentine's?) for the romantic and the lover of the music of L.Cohen--Venn diagrams which intersect almost perfectly.
Rating: really liked it
A few days ago, I heard an interview on NPR with Adam Cohen, Leonard Cohen's son. It was a tender, loving picture of his father, filled with admiration. Although I am not usually attracted to poetry, Cohen's music and poetry have always held an appeal for me. I look forward to reading this book.
Rating: really liked it
Poems, lyrics, emails, drawings, and notebook entries from the incomparable Leonard Cohen. I read the book and was hit by the joint feeling of meeting with an old friend and a strong sense of loss -- or maybe it felt more like this:
I caught the darkness, it was drinking from your cup
I caught the darkness, drinking from your cup
I said is this contagious?
You said just drink it up.
Rating: really liked it
In the last days of his life, Leonard Cohen prepared his last book, gathering drawings, unpublished material, and the lyrics from his last albums. He was a man who knew he was in his last days and an artist who needed to send out one last envoy to the world. That book has been published as The Flame.
The image on the cover is the burning bush, a green tree surrounded by fire and yet is not burned by the flames. Cohen's "flame burned bright within him to the very end," said Robert Kory, manager and trustee of the Cohen estate, “this book, finished only days before his death, reveals the intensity of his inner fire to all.”
One of the first record albums I bought as an early teen was The Songs of Leonard Cohen. I later bought the songbook. I grew up listening to those songs, singing those songs, strumming chords on my guitar. When an ARC of Cohen's final book The Flame arrived I downloaded the digital album and revisited those songs while opening the book to read.
As I worked my way through the book I researched Cohen's life and work online. I discovered the poets who he admired and influenced him, including Frederico Garcia Lorca; Cohen even named his daughter Lorca.
The drawings are primarily self-portraits, his face deeply creased and intense, and of women, spiritual imagery, and a few still lifes. Facsimiles of his manuscripts are also included.
The selections are confessional, addressing his personal struggles with depression, relationships, and spiritual meaning. Rhythm is more important than rhyme. The imagery is very personal, arcane, but also with references to Biblical stories and Jewish history.
The message I gather is this: When love fails to save us and faith fails to bring grace, and the world has become merciless, music and poetry become acts of resistance rebellion. The creative urge engenders the flame that can not be quenched or dimmed by the world.
I received an ARC from the publisher through a Goodreads giveaway.
Rating: really liked it
This book of poems and sketches was the last thing Leonard Cohen was working on prior to his death in 2016. His prolific output continued throughout his life, and he was forever sketching and jotting ideas down. It is really uncertain whether or not he had a book in mind -- some of the poems are dated much earlier, but they carry his trademark rhythms and I enjoyed envisioning him reading them with his world weary but warm and distinctive style. Several even made me laugh out loud (particularly when he takes a swipe at the vainglorious Kanye West), but several others brought tears ("I loved your face, I loved your hair/Your T-shirts and your eveningwear." "Now the angel's got a fiddle And the devil's got a harp. Every soul is like a minnow. Every mind is like a shark." and my favorite of all: SICILY CAFE, written in 2007, in which he encompasses his themes of regret and the elusiveness of memory.) Most of the sketches are of his most dependable model, himself. I met a woman once who had written a biography of him and had been granted access over a period of years. She said he continued creating even while they were just chatting, and that he loved to cook for people. Loved food, its preparation, presentation, and sharing. Several poems address this topic. Thanks to his sons who compiled these materials and allowed us to enjoy his company once again.
Rating: really liked it
I caught the darkness
Drinking from your cup
I said: Is this contagious?
You said: Just drink it up
Rating: really liked it
In June 2016, a new poem by Leonard Cohen was quietly published in The New Yorker. In fact, the poem was almost buried - I'd read the article and had the copy for about a month, I only found it because I was flipping through old(ish) magazines out of boredom. It was a gem, and a small joy to discover. It was titled
Steer Your Way and it's reprinted here.
"Steer your way through the ruins of the Altar and the Mall
steer your way through the fables of Creation and the Fall
steer your way past the Palaces that rise above the rot... Here Cohen juxtaposes the sacred and the commercial, the eternal and the temporal. He chooses to capitalize both the words "Altar" and "Mall" suggesting that the narrator (probably sarcastically) considers them on the same level, each worthy of the same reverence. All of course, is not well by the time we reach the third verse - We pull back and see the palaces of the rich that "rise above the rot" the slums, the ghettos. Something has went terribly wrong in our consumerist society, causing most everything to rot, to decay. The coup de grâce comes later in the poem, when he references what was one of the most popular civil war songs among the Union soldiers,
John Brown's body, which, in itself, references Christ
"As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free." It's a beautiful and powerful line, but Cohen replaces the value of making men free with the value of making things cheap,
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make things cheap" essentially perverting and updating the line for our modern consumerist society while rendering "our" death essentially useless; The idealized sacrifice of today is
not for mankind, but for production. Not exactly as lofty or noble as setting men free.
Though this collection contains the lyrics from Cohen's last three records, the vast majority of material here has never appeared in print (or on tape) before. The author is able to reach (contented) heights and (miserable) lows. He oscillates between between warmth and anger, between total devotion to God (rendered here, as in his other books, as "G-d") and frustration that God has abandoned him in his time of need
"...And we who cried for mercy
from the bottom of the pit
was our prayer so damn unworthy
that the Son rejected it?" It's a reoccurring motif in these poems and it's a struggle many people who are intensely devoted to a faith are forced to confront in the wake of tragedies, be they personal or global. It isn't easy.
Cohen's wry humor is on his display in many pieces, my favorite among them being "KANYE WEST IS NOT PICASSO" the whole poem is a great parody of egomania, and as the English say, it takes the piss out of Kanye and to a certain extent, Cohen himself. Still, if I had to pick a favorite line from this one it would have to be
" I Am the Kanye West Kanye West thinks he is." True.
Even when he confronts his impending death, he usually does it with a grim smile, as in the poem "I Think I'll Blame"
"I think I'll blame
my death on you
but I don't know you
well enough
if I did
we'd be married now." We occasionally see him in moments of desperation, where he addresses his mortality with the seriousness you'd expect from a dying man. He also ruminates on pining for women from the past, or candidly talks about medication, infected teeth, or his legacy Consider "If I Took A Pill"
If I took a pill
I'd feel so much better
I'd write you a poem
that sounds like a letter
...
I'm trying to finish
my shabby career
with a little truth
in the now and here." The section last section, "Selections from the notebooks" comprises the bulk of the book. I initially feared the worst about this section - That it would be raided bits from his journals he never intended anyone to read, or perhaps some fragments of poem that were ultimately left unfinished. Thankfully, that's not what this is. Nevertheless, it's not surprising that these poems aren't as polished as the ones that came in the pages before them, nor are they titled. Despite the obvious flaws, there are a great many gems here. One of the most powerful pieces, certainly in this section and perhaps in the entire book, reads, in part:
"I was second to none
but I was never best
I was old and broke
so I could not rest
You can call it luck
be it good or bad
but you don't give up
when your heart is dead." Or consider this, from perhaps the rawest poem he ever wrote:
...And what did you do
with my god
and my church
and my car
and my dick
was I supposed
to like
living on my fucking knees?" From context, we can see that he's addressing his ex-wife. Regardless, goddamn.
There are many more poems, poems about aging, love, falling out of love, the author's children, Dylan stealing his girl back in the sixties, farmers markets, making and writing music, dying, worship, blasphemy, hate, warmth, sin, "G-d," depression, medication - What makes this collection a five star book in my opinion is that Cohen is able to take all these seemingly incongruous feelings and themes and weave them into relatable, beautiful and accessible poems that make logical and emotional sense. It's a task he often attempted to tackle throughout his career, but it's here in his final work that he succeeds the most at it, making it a perfect capstone for his career, a logical end, a book to which the others had been building.
You owe it to yourself to read this one, you won't regret it.
Rating: really liked it
There's a slight urge to give this a fourth star out of sentimentality, but it's best to refrain. Though there is a fair amount of material from his final decade following 'Book of Longing' (2006), one wonders if his last great poetic works were in fact collected there, and what's left was to serve as the bulk of this final assemblage which seems to reflect the most simplistic decades in his discography (post-The Future, 1992 and pre-Old Ideas, 2012). There is little to engage with on any deep level, much as Ten New Songs and (especially) Dear Heather, both from the era in question, are the most adult-contemporary and flat-out basic "mom-music" albums of his career.
What 'The Flame' does highlight, however, is how strong the songwriting is on Old Ideas - his best album in over 20 years - and how the album that followed, Popular Problems, wasn't only plagued by the gratingly repetitive nature of the backing singers doing a call and response to what feels like every line in every song, nor was it the overall song structure / production in general that made it one of his weakest albums, but it's the lyrics themselves that indeed leave a lot to be desired. There's almost nothing there when you look at the words on paper, shadowed and sandwiched between the incredible words on Old Ideas and the worthy final effort, You Want It Darker, which elevate those albums (especially the former) to where they deserve to be (along side some of his greatest works).
I will never deny the potency of his lyrics - sometimes it's hard to listen to Songs from a Room, and Songs of Love and Hate is devastating in its own right, not to mention so much of what came after - and the themes present throughout his works remained right until the end, but sometimes people just get to growing old and begin looking for simpler pleasures and simpler despairs, and relating those pleasures and despairs in simpler ways that may best be appreciated by those of a similar age, while those of us still very far behind are still searching for that which is most evocative.
The penultimate section, 'Selections from the Notebooks', boasts some great unfinished poems that upon first reading felt more potent than the majority of what Cohen had actually completed and selected for inclusion in this volume. Closing out the book is the incredible tale of what became the foundation of his life's work in song.
It's nice to have a final word, both in book and in song, and it's pleasing to know that he was able to (mostly) complete everything himself before the end. Living in Montreal he's still always within some sort of reach, and there will undoubtedly be many more trips past his old front porch and visits to his grave site.
