Poems by Leonard Cohen
Funny thing, until I started reading this book it had never occurred to me
to think of Leonard Cohen as Jewish. When one reaches the section entitled
'Flowers for Hitler' there is no ignoring it.
Although a trade paperback edition these poems are given full honours, each
poem beginning on its own separate page and not sharing space with the next
even if it is only 3 lines.
Songs without the music that one expects to accompany them seem incomplete
though in common with Bob Dylan, Cohen cannot be accused of actually
singing.
If this book ends up on school library shelves it will be because someone
didn't persevere to read through to the end of the book. At about the
midpoint there is an entire section on fellatio and sodomy. I say this
neglecting the preponderance of songs and poems about wooing, making love
to, and exploiting woman.
Cohen seems to have justly earned his reputation as the original dirty old
man.
