Eye on Leonard Cohen

The man to your right is Leonard Cohen, Montreal's best-loved export, after the smoked meat.

He's been getting some buzz lately, from Prince Charles, who, in a recent interview, became the unlikely successor to famous fan Kurt Cobain, saying something slightly incoherent like "I say, there's this chap Cohen and he is absolutely marvellous, has a deep voice and sings these really quite good songs, rather" or something like that.

Not all English people appreciate Cohen - some (perhaps most) small-mindedly write him off as a kind of miserabilist crooner, a la Morrissey - that music to slit your wrists to tag never quite wore off - but then these are the same sorts of dolts who think Bob Dylan is simply that old guy with "the awful voice".

Cohen, who is one of Canada's best 20th century poets (with all that statement entails), as well as an inconic singer-songwriter, is going on tour again soon, and has a new book, recently published, called Book of Longing.

I've been asked to review it for the new online journal Northern Poetry Review (see Links) and it just arrived in the post today, from McClelland & Stewart in Canada. Rarely does a reviewer open a package like it may contain the Maltese Falcon, but it isn't every day a new Cohen book arrives. This one is quite thick, at 231 pages. I'll save most of my observations for the review.

It's good - if also sad - to read the dedication is to Irving Layton, another significant Canadian poet from Montreal, the city I come from.

For more, see www.leonardcohenfiles.com

Comments

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart? A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional. Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were. For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ? Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets. But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ? How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular. John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se. What do I mean by smart?

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and Silence of the Lambs . I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".

THE SWIFT REPORT 2023

I am writing this post without much enthusiasm, but with a sense of duty. This blog will be 20 years old soon, and though I rarely post here anymore, I owe it some attention. Of course in 2023, "Swift" now means one thing only, Taylor Swift, the billionaire musician. Gone are the days when I was asked if I was related to Jonathan Swift. The pre-eminent cultural Swift is now alive and TIME PERSON OF THE YEAR. There is no point in belabouring the obvious with delay: 2023 was a low-point in the low annals of human history - war, invasion, murder, in too many nations. Hate, division, the collapse of what truth is, exacerbated by advances in AI that may or may not prove apocalyptic, while global warming still seems to threaten the near-future safety of humanity. It's been deeply depressing. The world lost some wonderful poets, actors, musicians, and writers this year, as it often does. Two people I knew and admired greatly, Ian Ferrier and Kevin Higgins, poets and organise

E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

Search This Blog