The energy of slaves [Unknown Binding]

Leonard Cohen (Author)

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Leonard Cohen was born in Montreal in 1934. He received his B.A. from McGill University and pursued graduate studies in English at Columbia University. Soon thereafter, he returned to Montreal and worked in his family’s clothing business while he continued to write poetry.

His artistic career began in 1956 with the publication of Let Us Compare Mythologies. He has published nine collections of poetry, most recently, Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs (1993), and two novels, The Favourite Game (1963) and Beautiful Losers (1966). During the sixties he achieved national and international acclaim as a composer-singer. He has made seventeen albums, the latest being Dear Heather (2004). Numerous tribute albums, in many languages, have celebrated his songs.

Cohen was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1991, and promoted to the rank of Companion in 2003. He received the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award in 1993, and has won numerous Juno Awards.


From the Trade Paperback edition. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Unknown Binding
• Publisher: McClelland and Stewart
• ISBN-10: 0771022034
• ISBN-13: 978-0771022036
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,197,048 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The lost Canadian, February 9, 2003

By 

Pieter "Toypom" (Johannesburg) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Energy of Slaves (Paperback)

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.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Lorca lives on, April 16, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: The Energy of Slaves (Mass Market Paperback)

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

5.0 out of 5 stars The lost Canadian, May 13, 2007

By 

Pieter "Toypom" (Johannesburg) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

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.

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The Energy of Slaves

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