I’ve read the thread today… Ooh!
I dare say Leonard would gladly prefer seeing respect given, where respect is due, even apart from his being its recipient. Respect, unlike a cd or book, is not for sale.
Lizzytysh, I like that what you’ve said. I really like it. And I like your idealism. (Excuse me, please, the spontaneity and the familiarity of these words) I’m writing this with no shadow of irony, I
do mean it. Bright is the world you live in! I wish my own world were so bright…
As for me, I can’t value Mr. Cohen’s deeds, words, intentions etc. at all. I’m tooooooo far from him. But, unfortunately, I could hardly believe that someone involved, one way or another, in show business (or whatever name we may choose for this kind of activity) may be absolutely indifferent towards money… or worry too much about his fans… (Maybe, Mr. Cohen is an exception to the rule. I
really do
not know.) But does it really matter? Do any motives that are considered to be… not quite pure and innocent denigrate or devalue anyhow the fruits of creation?.. or the author himself?.. I used to think that a poet has a complicated paradoxical character and a great number of motives, intentions, aspirations – both “high” and “low” – are interwoven in his mind/heart (it was a common place, I thought). And maybe it thanks to this richness of his inner world that he is able to experience much more than everyone of us (as if he would live many lives) and therefore is able to express in his works something that affects so many people…
So even if someone supposes a poet to have some “non-idealistic” motives – does he/she denigrate this poet? I’d rather say – he’s a poet and it’s his “work” to combine the incompatibles in his heart… But I may be wrong, of course.
I wouldn’t like to be misunderstood… It isn’t easy for me to choose a correct tone (actually I even can’t write without any mistakes!
) ‘cause I’ve never been using English for conversation/posting – but for reading only - until visited this forum. That’s why I have to explain what I meant and what I didn’t and so on…
I don’t try to argue, to refute other points of view, to insist on my own opinion. The only thing I’d like to do is to reconcile a little… hmmm… “various positions” (I address this posting not to Lizzytysh exclusively, of course, but also to her opponents) because all these verbal battles… well, they are rather funny… but they make me feel unhappy
when I think of the people involved in them.
And here’s one old poem which is able, I hope, to reconcile and to explain many things.
THE POET
The bard, when asks of him Apollo
No sacred offering, is deep
In worldly cares ere long and follows
A dismal road: dark, numbing sleep
His soul embraces; no sound reaches
Us from his lyre - mute does it rest;
Of all earth's mean and paltry creatures
He is perhaps the paltriest.
But lo!- the good god's voice his ear
Has reached, and from his torpor parted
Is he, his soul an eagle startled
And on the wing. Our pleasures drear
Now seem to him; so too does idle
And petty talk. He'll not his head
Bow in obeisance to an idol,
The darling of the herd. Instead,
Full of sweet sounds, in wild confusion
Of heart, to distant, lonely seas
That lick at empty shores he flees,
In windswept forests seeks seclusion...
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