Leonard Cohen began his artistic career in 1956 with the publication of his first book of poetry, Let Us Compare Mythologies. He went on to publish twelve more books, including two celebrated novels, and gained worldwide recognition as an iconic singer-songwriter. He released fourteen studio albums, including three in the last years of his life, when he also became one of the most acclaimed arena-performing artists in the world.
Among his numerous honours, he is the recipient of the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award 2010, the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature 2011, the inaugural New England PEN Award for Excellence in Lyrics 2012, the 2016 Juno Awards for Song of the Year and Album of the Year, and he has been inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the US Songwriters Hall of Fame. He died in November 2016.
Also by Leonard Cohen
POETRY
The Spice-Box of Earth (1961)
Flowers for Hitler (1964)
Parasites of Heaven (1966)
Selected Poems: 1956–1968 (1968)
The Energy of Slaves (1972)
Death of a Lady’s Man (1978)
Book of Mercy (1984)
Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs (1993)
Book of Longing (2006)
The Flame (2018)
FICTION
The Favourite Game (1963)
Beautiful Losers (1966)
This Canons edition published in the UK in 2019 by Canongate Books Ltd,
14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE
This book was first published by Contact Press in 1956
This digital edition first published in 2019 by Canongate Books
Copyright © Leonard Cohen, 1956
The right of Leonard Cohen to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 has been asserted
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 78689 688 9
eISBN 978 1 78689 689 6
Book design by Five Seventeen
To the memory of my father
Nathan B. Cohen
Contents
The Sparrows
Item
City Christ
Song of Patience
When This American Woman
These Heroics
Folk Song
Song
Friends
Lovers
The Warrior Boats
Letter
Pagans
Song
Prayer for Sunset
Ballad
Saint Catherine Street
Ballad
Summer Night
The Flier
Had We Nothing to Prove
Satan in Westmount
Fragment of Baroque
Twilight
To I . P . L .
Poem
Halloween Poem
On Certain Incredible Nights
Jingle
The Fly
Warning
Les Vieux
Story
Saviours
Exodus
“Just The Worst Time”
Beside The Shepherd
“All right” he said. “Listen,” and read again, but only one stanza this time and closed the book and laid it on the table. “She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,” McCaslin said:
