The Flame: Poems Notebooks Lyrics Drawings

It’s leonard cohen,last book we’re ever going to get, so even though i breathlessly love every single poem, lyric, scrawled note-to-self he may have been planning to polish at a later date.The Observer wasn’t kidding when it called Leonard Cohen ‘the last word in love and despair

The first has 63 poems, ranging from the sublime to the ‘meh’ to the so odd it has to be genius; the second features the poems that became lyrics from his remarkable last four albums; and the third is an eclectic selection of writings and doodlings from Cohen’s notebooks. I like the way he always talk about sad love like he is standing between regreting how he loved and glad how he never loved beforeThis book covers a great chunk of time, and some show more of the early writing here does in fact become something else later in his career; there’s even evidence of that occurring within this collection - echoes, phrases repurposed, the under ghosts of familiar songs peeking out elsewhere.

if there had to be a farewell at all, this is a fitting one - the whole range of his writing is on display; all of his wit and erotic spirituality, his self-deprecation and his gratitude, his respect and his delight in the fluidity of language.

the book is almost like being at a memorial ceremony - there are humorous moments to stave off getting too gloomy or somber. show less

As the title indicates, this book embraces poems and selections from the notebooks Cohen kept all his life, but is also illustrated with many of his self-portraits. Satisfyingly, it concludes the speech he made in 2011 when accepting the Prince of Asturias award in Spain, in which he explains how a young Spaniard taught him to play guitar. It's a fabulous collection of Cohen's distinctive dark love.

I started by listening to an audio version before obtaining a print copy that I could peruse at my own pace. Either is highly recommended.

If I didn't have your love

If the sun would lose its light
And we lived an endless night
And there was nothing left
That you could feel
That’s how it would be
What the world would seem to me
If I didn’t show more have your love
To make it real show less

A regal posthumous collection of poetry and drawings from Leonard Cohen, the poet-singer with "a mandate from God to enter the dark," as he puts it in one of the fragments at the end of this book (pg. 263). And yes, there are fragments alongside the completed poems, but The Flame never smacks of opportunism: Cohen intended to release another book of poetry but could not complete it before his death. The compilation is a sort of state funeral for a man whose career glowed with insight and graciousness.

A selection of Cohen's work that sometimes reaches the sublime and other times falls short. Nonetheless, there are some great pieces in here for the gander and, for anyone interested in Cohen's work or in poetry, this will serve as a great primer to the rest of Cohen's oeuvre and expand their knowledge, and appreciation, of both the poet and poetry itself. It is worth the read.

3.5.

You came to me
You wear your widow clothes
I ask who are you mourning for
you say, The man you were before
The man you were before
I loved you

I remember him

Didn't he live
on an island in
the Mediterranean sea
with a mandate from God
to enter the dark

~~~~~
"... we're busted in the blinding lights of Closing Time."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-0lV5qs1Qw

I enjoyed the poetry and the lyrics, particularly related to Anjani Thomas. Transcriptions of the notebooks requires a scholarly diligence for studying his life and work.

Goodreads Choice AwardNominee for Readers' Favorite Poetry (2018)
The Flame is the final work from Leonard Cohen, the revered poet and musician whose fans span generations and whose work is celebrated throughout the world. Featuring poems, excerpts from his private notebooks, lyrics, and hand-drawn self-portraits, The Flame offers an unprecedentedly intimate look inside the life and mind of a singular artist.

A reckoning with a life lived deeply and passionately, with wit and panache, The Flame is a valedictory work.

“This volume contains my father’s final efforts as a poet,” writes Cohen’s son, Adam Cohen, in his foreword. “It was what he was staying alive to do, his sole breathing purpose at the end.”

Leonard Cohen died in show more late 2016. But “each page of paper that he blackened,” in the words of his son, “was lasting evidence of a burning soul.” show less