Name: Stranger Music
ISBN: 9780771022326

Leonard Cohen

Stranger Music brings together, at last, the words of a Canadian artist who has been anything but a stranger to so many of us for so long ... Cohen has woven a chain of words that binds us together. --Calgary Herald.

Selected Poems and Songs

Stranger Music

A collection of the song lyrics and poetry of the Canadian novelist and poet showcases the clarity, passion, and timeless quality of his literary work. Reprint. 20,000 first printing.

Gavin

I don't think he's depressing! Does that make me in some way broken? Anyway: Cohen the Jewish Buddhist leverages literary power from a faith he does not own: his poems are thus as erotic and grotesque as the best Christian writing. Much funnier and more concrete than his songs, too. Sure, everything is ominous in his work, but it's also banal, and these often admit they're ridiculous. To my surprise he is never obscure; to my relief he is never fatally wounded by the vicious retribution his many flaws invite. 

Gnarled urban spirituality. A strong, unlikely comparison: Bukowski. They both fixate on: plain poems about poems, bitter desire, nakedness, grandiose self-loathing, losers in love, and the significance of everyday things.(Look at this: "The art of longing's over and it's never coming back.") Speaking of Bukowski: is Cohen sexist? Arguable. For every slap in the face like 'Diamonds in the Mine', there are several tendernesses ('Portrait of a Lady') and self-aware apologies for lust. I would say: shocking and honest about patriarchal shapes, generally not unfeminist. ("You took my fingerprints away / So I would love you for your mind.") Moments of chastity inamongst the randy fury - for instance he never says 'God', always 'G-d'. Lots about the Holocaust too, mostly its banal consequences.
Kiss me with your teeth 
All things can be done.
whisper museum ovens of 
a war that Freedom won.

The newer stuff is generally weak, because less wry, profane and specific. 
(4/5 with lots of 5/5 moments: 'French and English', 'Israel', 'A Working Man', 'Queen Victoria and Me', 'Montreal' 'Hydra 1960', 'A Cross Didn't Fall on Me', 'Disguises', 'It's Probably Spring'.)

Stranger Music Selected Poems and Songs

Reviews

Highlights