Leonard Cohen - Selected Poems, 1956-1968

Leonard Cohen - SELECTED POEMS, 1956-1968 (Viking, 1968). 255 pp. -- PDF


Published soon after the release of Leonard Cohen's first album in 1967, SELECTED POEMS contains a generous selection of material from volumes previously published only in Canada. It includes many of the ecstatically lyric poems first published in "The Spice-Box of Earth" (1961), as well as verses from "Let Us Compare Mythologies" (1956), "Flowers for Hitler" (1964), "Parasites of Heaven" (1966), and a number of new poems collected for the first time, many with strong social and religious overtones.

In his eloquent search for what he calls a "state of grace" -- the kind of balance with which one rises to the chaos around him -- Cohen eludes the restrictions of genres and generations. Eclectic, searching, his voice is above all deeply personal.

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