Leonard cohen the flame review7/6/2023 Or the poem, “Kanye West Is Not Picasso,” in which Cohen declares, “I am the Kanye West Kanye West thinks he is.” Take, for example, the short poem, “My Career”:Ĭohen is weirder and more cannily observant when his poems are shorter and less like songs, as in the short poem, “What I Do”: But what surprised me most is the dictate against casual lamentation, because that’s precisely what Cohen does best on the page. In his acceptance speech for the Prince of Asturias Award, included at the end of the book, Cohen writes of his “deep association and confraternity with the poet Federico García Lorca,” from whom he learned the importance of voice - specifically, “never to lament casually.” It surprised me to read this, partly because Cohen’s lyric voice is much looser and more observational than Lorca’s. Leonard Cohen’s final book is a testament to the songwriter’s enduring and particular creative drive, which reveals itself here, as the book’s subtitle suggests, in poems, song lyrics, excerpts from his notebooks, and pen-and-ink self-portraits.
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