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The Energy of Slaves

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At one stage known as Canadas poet laureate of existential despair, Cohen published a number of poetry books and the classic novel Beautiful Losers during the 1960s and early 1970s. First published in 1972, this book contains 117 of his poems. I always look for imagery and phrases from his lyrics, of which there are plenty here: The germ of his song I Left A Woman Waiting appears on p.5 and a line from Listening To Her Song on p.41 (Theres a lot of music/on Clinton street) connects with the lyric of Famous Blue Raincoat, while the lines that appear on the cover of the album Songs of Love and Hate are here too: They locked up a man/Who wanted to rule the world/The fools/They locked up the wrong man. Dance on The Money is a poem about Greece and his Beat contemporaries are acknowledged in a poem about Irving Layton and Allen Ginsberg, plus there's a poem to Norma Mailer (Dear Mailer) while Suzanne of the famous lyric features in The Form of Poetry: The whole world told me/To shut up and go home/And Suzanne took me down/To her place by the river. I am not a literary critic, but Cohens poetics reminds me of that of the Beats and to a lesser extent, of that of the Confessional school like Robert Lowell and Anne Sexton. I personally enjoy his written work, but not quite as much as his music. This book however, is a must for all true fans of the man and his exquisite music.

This trodding book of self centered, pseudo romantic poetry is a Cohen origional. The creation of Leonard Cohen's soul and demeanor could have easily come from this exquisite book. A wonderful purchase for anyone remotely interested in modern day romanticism, or just infatuated love. Cohen plays the page as he does his music, sculpting it into a genre all his own, personalizing the paper itself, and then nonchalantly putting his mind and emotions into your awaiting hands and eyes, a true expression of feeling and soul

At one stage known as Canada's poet laureate of existential despair, Cohen published a number of poetry books and the classic novel Beautiful Losers during the 1960s and early 1970s. First published in 1972, this book contains 117 of his poems.

I always look for imagery and phrases from his lyrics, of which there are plenty here: The germ of his song I Left A Woman Waiting from the album Death of a Ladies' Man appears on p.5 and a line from Listening To Her Song on p.41. "There's a lot of music/on Clinton street") connects with the lyric of Famous Blue Raincoat, while the lines that appear on the cover of the album Songs of Love and Hate are here too: "They locked up a man/Who wanted to rule the world/The fools/They locked up the wrong man."

Dance on The Money is a poem about Greece and his Beat contemporaries are acknowledged in a poem about Irving Layton and Allen Ginsberg, plus there's a poem to Norma Mailer (Dear Mailer) whilst from Songs of Leonard Cohen, Suzanne of the famous lyric features in The Form of Poetry: "The whole world told me/To shut up and go home/And Suzanne took me down/To her place by the river."

I am not a literary critic, but Cohen's poetics reminds me of that of the Beats and to a lesser extent, of that of the 1960s Confessional school like Robert Lowell and Anne Sexton. I personally enjoy his written work, but not quite as much as his music. This book however, is a must for all true fans of the man and his exquisite music. My only criticism: there is no index of first lines.

Flowers for Hitler

The Energy of Slaves

Songs of Leonard Cohen, Herewith: Music, Words, and Photographs