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The final collection of poetry from Leonard Cohen’s body of work, introduced by son Adam Cohen. Plumbs the depths of humanity’s darkest questions with a sense of yearning. Illustrations and notes throughout
The Flame is a stunning collection of Leonard Cohen’s last poems, selected and ordered by the author in the final months of his life. Featuring lyrics, prose pieces and illustrations, the book also contains an extensive selection from Cohen’s notebooks, which he kept in poetic form throughout his life, and offers an unprecedentedly intimate look inside the life and mind of a singular artist and thinker.
An enormously powerful final chapter in Cohen’s storied literary career, The Flame showcases the full range of Leonard Cohen’s lyricism, from the exquisitely transcendent to the darkly funny. By turns devastatingly sad and winningly strange, these are the works of a poet and lyricist who has plumbed the depths of our darkest questions and come up wanting, yearning for more.
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 12 more books, including two celebrated novels and gained worldwide recognition as an iconic singer-songwriter.
He released 14 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.
The Flame
by Leonard Cohen (Author),
Adam Cohen (Introduction)
Language: English
Available as Hardback,
eBook, Downloadable audio
288 pages
Publisher: Canongate Books
Main edition 2 Oct. 2018
ISBN-10: 9781786893130
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Leonard Cohen: The Flame
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The final collection of the seminal musician and poet, which he was determined to complete before his death
Just weeks before his death in late 2016, Leonard Cohen told The New Yorker that he was ready for the end to come. He just wanted enough time to put his last book in order. Fortunately, that time was granted. The Flame is Cohen’s eloquent farewell, a valedictory collection of lyrics, poems, notebook sketches, and self-portraits that maps his singular creative journey. As noted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s citation, “For six decades, Leonard Cohen revealed his soul to the world through poetry and song―his deep and timeless humanity touching our very core.”
In addition to new poems about war, desire, regrets, lamb chops, and hummingbirds, and lyrics from his last three albums, including the chart-topping “You Want It Darker,” The Flame includes carefully selected excerpts from Cohen’s voluminous notebooks, which he kept faithfully over the years. Readers will find in these pages the subjects that have always preoccupied Cohen: the dimensions of love, the secret code of existence, and the hope for transcendence in a broken world.
In the words of Cohen’s longtime manager and friend, Robert Kory, The Flame “reveals to all the intensity of his inner fire” to the end.
Leonard Cohen was a hugely influential Canadian poet, songwriter, and cultural icon who died on the eve of the 2016 presidential election. His “Hallelujah” is widely considered the redemptive song of the resistance. Cohen’s many canonical songs (“Suzanne,” “So Long, Marianne,” “Famous Blue Raincoat,” “Dance Me to the End of Love,” and others) have earned him a place in the small pantheon that includes Bob Dylan and Patti Smith. Cohen’s many honors include a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, a Prince of Asturias Award for Literature, and election to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Leonard Cohen (Author)
The Flame: Poems and Notebooks
Publish. date: October 2, 2018!
Hardcover – $28.00
304 pages
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0374156069
ISBN-13: 978-0374156060
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Leonard Norman Cohen (21 September 1934 – 7 November 2016)
De Canadese schrijver, dichter en zanger Leonard Cohen is op 7 november overleden in Los Angeles USA, waar hij de laatste jaren woonde. Hij trok zich regelmatig terug in een boeddhistisch klooster in de buurt. Cohen was al enige tijd ziek, hij is 82 jaar oud geworden.
Leonard Cohen trad in 2013 voor de laatste keer op in Nederland. You Want It Darker, zijn laatste album, verscheen nog maar enkele weken geleden. Dit album werd met groot enthousiasme en veel respect ontvangen. Het wordt algemeen beschouwd als zijn beste album.
ALBUMS
Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967)
Songs from a Room (1969)
Songs of Love and Hate (1971)
New Skin for the Old Ceremony (1974)
Death of a Ladies’ Man (1977)
Recent Songs (1979)
Various Positions (1984)
I’m Your Man (1988)
The Future (1992)
Ten New Songs (2001)
Dear Heather (2004)
Old Ideas (2012)
Popular Problems (2014)
You Want It Darker (2016)
POETRY
– Let Us Compare Mythologies. Montreal: Contact Press [McGill Poetry Series], 1956. reissued 2007
– The Spice-Box of Earth. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1961.
– Flowers for Hitler. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1964.
– Parasites of Heaven. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1966.
– Selected Poems 1956–1968. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1968.
– The Energy of Slaves. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1972. New York: Viking, 1973.
– Death of a Lady’s Man. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1978. London, New York: Viking, Penguin, 1979. – reissued 2010
– Book of Mercy. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1984. – reissued 2010
– Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs. London, New York, Toronto: Cape, Pantheon, McClelland & Stewart, 1993.
– Book of Longing. London, New York, Toronto: Penguin, Ecco, McClelland & Stewart, 2006. (poetry, prose, drawings)
– The Lyrics of Leonard Cohen. London: Omnibus Press, 2009.
– Poems and Songs. New York: Random House (Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets), 2011.
– Fifteen Poems. New York: Everyman’s Library/Random House, 2012. (eBook)
NOVELS
– The Favorite Game. London, New York, Toronto: Secker & Warburg, Viking P, McClelland & Stewart, 1963. Reissued as The Favourite Game. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart [New Canadian Library], 1994.
– Beautiful Losers. New York, Toronto: Viking Press, McClelland & Stewart, 1966. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart [New Canadian Library], 1991, 2003.
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