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Leonard Cohen (1934 – )

Novelist, poet, songwriter and performer

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Criticism about Leonard Cohen

Cohen’s Noos

http://www.uwo.ca/english/canadianpoetry/cpjrn/vol33/wah.htm

“When Leonard Cohen claims, ‘I am a hotel,’ he sets up the news of his world in a very particular, singular way. The Chelsea. New York. Maybe he picked up a copy of Lorca’s Poet in New York in the late 50’s. Maybe Irving Layton encouraged him to try his luck there. (Why Layton ran off from his own successful New York debut is still a mystery.) In any case, his world was a hotel…”

Contains: Criticism

Author: Fred Wah

From: Canadian Poetry vol. 33

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The Counterfeiter Begs Forgiveness: Leonard Cohen and Leonard Cohen

http://www.uwo.ca/english/canadianpoetry/cpjrn/vol33/scobie.htm

“I suspect that the main reason I was asked to give this address was, more mundanely, the critical writing I have done on Cohen over the past twenty years; and my main reason for accepting was the opportunity it gives me to re-visit and re-read some of that writing.”

Contains: Criticism

Author: Stephen Scobie

From: Canadian Poetry vol. 33

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Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan: Poetry and the Popular Song

http://www.medialab.chalmers.se/guitar/LC3.html

“The distance between the gleomannes gyd in Beowulf or ‘Sumer is Icumen In’ and the songs of Leonard Cohen or Bob Dylan may seem great, but is one of time rather than aesthetics. The lyric poem as a literary work and the lyrics of a popular song are both still essentially the same thing: poetry.”

Contains: Criticism, Pictures

Author: Frank Davey

From: December 1969

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The Mistress’ Reply to the Poet

http://www.uwo.ca/english/canadianpoetry/cpjrn/vol33/crate.htm

“In the tradition of the pastoral poet-lovers of sixteenth- and seventeenth century English verse, Leonard Cohen uses Woman as a means to explore his own exquisitely tortured self. Woman is Mistress; woman is physical presence, a place to plant his words around. But Cohen changes the convention somewhat, up/date-(rape)s it. In the twentieth century the poet-lover is not one who merely y/earns, who hangs his love outside the door of his mistress, who knocks with trepidation, begging en/trance. He is a break and enter artist. If there is any hanging to be done, it is the mistress the poet-lover will hang, though occasionally from a pedestal. Indeed, in Cohen’s poems the Mistress often becomes sacrifice, though more often she is used as muse, her degradation relatively minor, and if not painless, frequently bloodless.”

Contains: Criticism

Author: Joan Crate

From: Canadian Poetry vol. 33

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Reading Leonard Cohen: Reprise

http://www.uwo.ca/english/canadianpoetry/cpjrn/vol33/sproxton.htm

Introduction to the proceedings of a conference devoted to Cohen and his works.

Contains: Criticism

Author: Birk Sproxton

From: Canadian Poetry vol. 33

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Biographical sites about Leonard Cohen

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Other sites about Leonard Cohen

The Leonard Cohen Files

http://www.leonardcohenfiles.com/

An extremely comprehensive site with over 700 pages of content, including a biography, chat room, message board, unpublished poems and artwork by Cohen, filmography, bibliography, etc.

Contains: Pictures, Bibliography, Works List, Commentary, Interview, Extensive Bio, Awards, Webliography

Author: Jarkko Arjatsalo

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Ten or More Questions I Should Have Asked Leonard Cohen

http://www.uwo.ca/english/canadianpoetry/cpjrn/vol33/nadel.htm

“In the tradition of l’esprit d’escalier, then, let me share with you some of my post-event questions and examine the answers drawn from statements by, and interviews with, Leonard Cohen. Although the discussion is fictitious, quotation marks indicate the words of Leonard Cohen.”

Contains: Interview

Author: Ira B. Nadel

From: Canadian Poetry vol. 33

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Last Updated Apr 29, 2013