Cohen << KOH uhn >>, Leonard (1934-2016), was a Canadian singer, songwriter, poet, and novelist. He received a number of awards for his music.
Cohen began his career as a poet. Most of Cohen’s poetry is romantic, but his romanticism is often mixed with irony and dark cynicism. He preferred metrically regular forms. His central subjects were love, death, and spiritual vision. Cohen’s first book of poetry was Let Us Compare Mythologies (1956). Other important poetic works include The Spice-Box of Earth (1961), Flowers for Hitler (1964), The Energy of Slaves (1972), Book of Mercy (1984), and Book of Longing (2006). Selected Poems 1956-1968 (1968) is a good introduction to Cohen’s poetry. He wrote two novels. The Favorite Game (1963) follows the adventures of a young poet in Montreal. Beautiful Losers (1966) is a lyrical dream of Montreal, combined with Canadian religious history and the nature of sainthood. Cohen’s last book, The Flame (2018), published after his death, includes poems, song lyrics, and selections of writings and sketches from notebooks that Cohen had kept for some 60 years.
Beginning in the late 1960’s, Cohen gained international fame as a songwriter and folk singer, setting his own poems to music. His first album, Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967), was a critical and commercial hit. His other successful albums include Songs from a Room (1969); Songs of Love and Hate (1971); New Skin for the Old Ceremony (1974); I’m Your Man (1988); The Future (1992); Ten New Songs (2001); Dear Heather (2004); Old Ideas (2012); Popular Problems (2014); and his last studio album, You Want It Darker (2016), released when Cohen was 82 years old. Thanks for the Dance, an album of songs from Cohen’s recording sessions for You Want It Darker, was released by his songwriter son Adam in 2019, after Leonard Cohen’s death. Leonard Cohen’s best-known songs include “Suzanne,” “So Long, Marianne,” “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye,” and “Sisters of Mercy” (all 1967); “Bird on the Wire” (1969); “Famous Blue Raincoat” (1970); “Hallelujah” (1984); “Everybody Knows” (1988); and “Democracy” (1992).
Leonard Norman Cohen was born on Sept. 21, 1934, in Montreal. Cohen was ordained a Zen Buddhist monk in 1999 and lived in a Buddhist monastery from 1996 to 2001. In 1991, he was appointed an Officer, and in 2002, a Companion, of the Order of Canada. Appointment to the order is one of Canada’s highest civilian honors. Cohen won a number of Juno Awards for his music and was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1991. Juno Awards are awarded annually by the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences to Canadian musical artists and bands to acknowledge their artistic and technical achievements. Cohen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, in 2008. He also won a number of Grammy Awards for his music, including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010. Cohen died on Nov. 10, 2016.
