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He formed a band called the Buckskin Boys in high school. His first album came out in 1967. Cohen's most famous song, "Hallelujah". He had 15 studio albums in the end. He would read his poetry in the clubs of Little Portugal neighborhood in Montreal. He went to McGill in 1951 and published his poetry in the college literary magazines. He graduated in 1955. Yeats is a poet said to influence him, and Henry Miller. His first published book of poetry was Let Us Compare Mythologies (1956). The well-known Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye wrote a review of the book in which he gave Cohen "restrained praise". He tried law school, and then went to NYC and Columbia. His next book was The Spice-Box of Earth (1961). His father's will provided him with a modest trust income sufficient to allow him to pursue his literary ambitions for the time. He lived sometimes on the Greek Island of Hydra in 1961, where he bought a house. He wrote a book of poetry and two novels. The books didn't sell well. Around 1966 he decided to become a songwriter. He's seen singing in 1965 short film about him. During the 1960s, he was a fringe figure in Andy Warhol's "Factory" crowd.
Cohen's writing process, "like a bear stumbling into a beehive or a honey cache: I'm stumbling right into it and getting stuck, and it's delicious and it's horrible and I'm in it and it's not very graceful and it's very awkward and it's very painful and yet there's something inevitable about it."
I'm currently reading Book of Longing (2006).
I laughed today at these lines (p. 11, Hardback):
better than darkness
is fake darkness
which swindles you
into necking with
someone's antique
cousin
Cohen is too smutty to be a Buddhist poet, even if you think Ryokan (1758-1831) is a Buddhist poet. He falls in more with the Beats, who had a Buddhist influence.
He can coin some epigrams: "The sadness of the zoo will fall upon society." (p. 31)
He reminds me of John Dunne and Robert Creeley.
I started Beautiful Losers (1966). He starts the novel discussing Kateri Tekakwitha. Considering his struggle with sexuality and the spiritual life, and she was a Native American virgin saint co-opted by Catholicism. Maybe not co-opted, she did convert and spend time in a monastery near Montreal. Born in upstate New York to a Mohawk father, and an Algonquin mother, who was captured by the Mohawks. I didn't know the statue at the Santa Fe church was of her, I've seen that statue. Seems she wasn't interested in marriage, seems like a monastery was her way out. The miracles associated with her canonization are priests who had relics praying over sick people who got better.
Links:
Ira Nadel wrote a biography in 1994.
JUDY COLLINS & LEONARD COHEN - "Suzanne" 1976 (YouTube). I didn't know Collins had bulimia when she quit smoking. She went to rehab in 1978 for alcohol.
Julie Felix with Leonard Cohen "Hey That's No Way To Say (Facebook)
The Leonard Cohen Files a tribute to the music and poetry of the Canadian singer-songwriter-poet-novelist Leonard Cohen. Forum, photo gallery, discography, bibliography...
Ladies and Gentlemen... Mr. Leonard Cohen (1965) (Tubi--free, one commercial, 44 minutes, there are other sources): His inheritance gives him 7,500 canadian dollars a year. He earned 17K for his book and literary prizes one year. There's pictures of his black driver, uncles, aunts and cousins. There's a picture of her girlfriend, and friends. He sings, play guitar and harmonica. (Wikipedia entry on short film)
Interview Charlie Rose
Lifetime achievement from the Grammys in 2010: "... in 2004 after ex-manager Kelley Lynch stole $9.5 million from the singer while he was secluded in a Buddhist retreat."
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