By Leonard Cohen
Viking Penguin, NZ$45 | Reviewed by Simon Sweetman

SPANNING thirty-five years, Leonard Cohen’s latest – long-awaited – book of poetry sees the writer covering familiar ground. He is still obsessed with women and intrigued by himself. He is still full of wicked, sly humour – sometimes laugh out loud, sometimes filled with pathos – and he is still capable of having his inimitable voice fill every page with his indelible mark, his indemonstrable spirit. The sensual side of Leonard Cohen has always overpowered the personal side. We know who he is as an artist, but who is he as a person? Book Of Longing comes close to providing a real answer for fans; several of the prose-poem and short-essay pieces are extremely autobiographical, no huge surprise there, but, aged 70, we now have a man contemplating his mortality, rather than merely navel-gazing and contemplating his humility.

Cohen was, and is, first and foremost a poet; a writer. He released two novels and several (award-winning) volumes of poetry before he released that influential bedsit debut record, Songs Of Leonard Cohen. It is likely that the real reason we are (finally) allowed to peek in to some new pages is due to that fact that Leonard was ripped off by his erstwhile business manager. He is not just contemplating mortality, but also potential retirement – and possible bankruptcy, but he also has new experiences to document (most of the last decade was spent up a mountain, in near-solitude, devoted to Buddhist teachings). And sketches – very similar to Bob Dylan’s intentionally naïve line-drawings – dot the edges of most of the pages.

As always (and anyone interested in Cohen’s writing who doesn’t already own it, must buy a copy of the anthology, Stranger Music) Cohen handles rhyme so well, never too cheesy, managing to tell a tale with the accessibility of a Charles Bukowski or a Rod McKuen and yet lofty and literary enough to still be of interest to readers who have moved on towards Simon Armitage and Billy Collins.

Cohen has his own biography (and discography) to play with too – one thing that not many poets can do successfully, without disappearing up their own backside. He is also blessed with the poetic principle of economy as evidenced with ‘I Wrote For Love’:

“I wrote for love./Then I wrote for money./With someone like me/it’s the same thing”.