(Yet as Layton often says, artists must align themselves with reality in order to survive).
there’s only two things stopping me from being a “good” writer…
one is “talent” and the other “motivation”…
to borrow an old Woody Allen joke
Can lit “the image”…an essay in experience from within
outside of herself, what do others see?
in a lower socio economic reality
the participants
were never discussed
not to mention the institution
the closest
an Edmonton librarian(entry level government)
who loved my work
the wealthy read and buy books
and are unfazed by their lifestyles
Can Lit and Cohen
Cohen came the the closest to shaking it up,
but only from a far, first Greece, then LA…
Layton and then Leonard
Layton, as is well known, became more Jewish
later in life…a renewed interest…already a good poet…
Can Lit and Buddhism
Cohen spends five years in the mountains on a meditation retreat
a living legend and writes he has
“no special spiritual talent”.
First We Take Manhattan
by Leonard Cohen
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
For trying to change the system from within
I'm coming now, I'm coming to reward them
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.
I'm guided by a signal in the heavens
I'm guided by this birthmark on my skin
I'm guided by the beauty of our weapons
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.
I'd really like to live beside you, baby
I love your body and your spirit and your clothes
But you see that line there moving through the station?
I told you, I told you, told you, I was one of those
Ah you loved me as a loser,but now you're worried that I just might win
You know the way to stop me but you don't have the discipline
How many nights I prayed to let my work begin
First we take Manhattan,then we take Berlin
I don't like your fashion business mister
And I don't like these drugs that keep you thin
I don't like what happened to my sister
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin
I'd really like to live beside you, baby
I love your body and your spirit and your clothes
But you see that line there moving through the station?
I told you, I told you, told you, I was one of those
And I thank you for those items that you sent me
“The monkey and the plywood violin”
I practiced every night, now I'm ready
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin
Remember me? I used to live for music
Remember me? I brought your groceries in
“Well it's Father's Day and everybody's wounded”
First we take Manhattan,then we take Berlin
the end.
Discussion (tongue in cheek)
I suspect this was written for music
so on the printed page it is…
an existential angst, mixed with knowing, but unable to do anything..
Cohen's’ famous cynicism
Conclusion
Because we don’t like popular music too much over all we can only give him a grade of
Of course, if ranked in his genre it would be much higher…
somewhere above Lady Ga Ga and below Madonna…joking kind of…
Another view from Academia
Clint Burnham argues that Flowers for Hitler articulates a significant postmodern move,
and links Cohen to other critics of the media:
Innes, McLuhan, Adorno, Jameson.
Cohen's poem "Style" suggests another line of inquiry.
The image of "electric unremembering" migrates throughout the volume.
Burnham's assertion that Flowers for Hitler typifies the postmodern denial of subjecthood finds confirmation in the very title of the poem
"It Uses Us!"
“It” remains ominously undefined, but clear that “It” is some strange powerful thing that acts upon us,
Burnham sees such parasitic feeding as part of the ongoing dominance and spread of capitalism.
The impersonal feeds on the personal.
For a narcissist like Cohen this would be particularly painful i generalize.
Typical is the "interpenetration of technology and the body" or cyberpunk,
"I have lost a telephone / with your smell in it."
Burnham challenges those canon-making views of literary history which address issues of style or influence
while neglecting the huge forces of economic and political change.
http://www.uwo.ca/english/canadianpoetry/cpjrn/vol33/sproxton.htm
Layton
Leonard Cohen once said of Irving Layton, "I taught him how to dress, he taught me how to live forever."
http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/layton/index.htm
Three Poems by Irving Layton
The Slaughterhouse
In the absurd slaughterhouse that is history where there are no heroes but only butchers and the slain, no matter what fables silly poets tell and theologians believe, make certain the cleaver is yours and the bared throat someone else’s. But best if, from a safe niche away from the roar of those whom power maddens you can observed the flashing blades and the beautiful rosettes their spilled blood makes on page and floor.
Xianity
Brother and fellow poet is this what you wanted?
The muttering of bead counting hysterics? The snufflings of joyless misfits and cripples fearful of death, more fearful of life? The misereres of the doomed dregs in every large metropolis of the world? The hosannahs of the conformist hordes stinking of money and respectability?
Is this what you wanted: the grey suburban church and the greyer people shambling into it each Sunday you who openly consorted with whores and drunkards and so loved laughter and joy that you were willing to be crucified for them?
After Auschwitz
My son, don’t be a waffling poet; let each word you write be direct and honest like the crack of a gun
believe an aging poet of the twentieth century: neither the Old Testament nor the New or the saying of the Koran or the Three Baskets of Wisdom or of the Dhammapada will ever modify or restrain, the beastliness of men
Lampshades were made from the skins of a people preaching the gospel of love; the ovens of Auschwitz and Belsen are open testimony to their folly
Despite memorial plaques of horror and contrition repentance my son, is short lived
an automatic rifle endures a life time
if you made it this far
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