leonardcohenforum.com

After coming across multiple references to Michael Benazon’s Dec 9, 1985 interview with Leonard Cohen that was published in the Fall 1986 issue of Matrix and finding no online source or readily obtainable print version of it, I finally tracked down a copy and purchased it from a Canadian bookseller.

This interview includes, among other points, the following:

Leonard Cohen’s relationship with poet, A.M. Klein
Klein’s connection to Cohen’s maternal grandfather
Cohen’s attitude toward poets in general
The interaction of Judaism, culture, and poetics
Differentiation of Hebraic from Yiddish
Cohen’s connectedness with world communities through his songs
His feelings re Montreal vis-à-vis local loyalties Vs universal loyalties

Thanks very very much

Thank you so much for this, Allan! I have saved it & look forward to reading it.

Thanks! That is a heck of an article.

For he did talk about it, he just not show it. To make a change.

Lately he seems to prefer to joke and/or provide twitter-style sort of answers (1) in his latest interviews and I don't blame him. Not to howl with a pack may mean that the wolves from all different packs will be out for you as if an ennemy of the pack. The good news are : real human beings you met everywhere in the world. There is no local vs. universal, there is only humanking everywhere.

I do think : It is useless to deny roots. Nourished by them, just naturally grow up out more than them : Blossom. Differences are so very beautiful in their rich diversities.

The great spirits always feed the real fire from their local positions, but there's always a central thing that is above the local affiliations.

-Leonard Cohen.

This thing may well be this huge Leonard Cohen artistic persona (genius) that I am such a maniac fan about (I ain't find a cure yet, so I'm still glued over here, he?)

(1)Few-seconds-images-video-clip-easy-going things, or what I see as speaking the language of actual universal medium. A shell that contains the whole wold to feed who ever is hungry for more.

Of course this is all my only personal opinion.

Sometimes I feel like breathing oxygene so pure in cohen arts hights is going to my head, that I am feeling dizzy, and may disturbe other fans. This is not intentional. Lately, I mean.

Montréal was created by the French in the Nouvelle France during the european colonial travels and conquests (which means that europeans were stoling the first nations of everything they had with no respect for them). It's first name was Ville-Marie (Mary City) and it was a city buit in the honour of the Virgin Mary and devoted to her. A long time ago. Well before 1986 For example, Place Ville-Marie and Basilique Notre-Dame are two architectural "offerings" in this regard.

Then The King of France let go officially the French North American territories to the hands of the King of England or whoever wanted them, but the French Canadians never really surrender to anybody, in the facts. They are a nation, recognized as one of the two official nations (French and English) that founded Canada.

The old coat of arms of the city was saying :

Condordia Salus, salvation through harmony.



Now it is even not this (which looks like a gastro more than a logo) :



as this city is now an ordinaly section of the global village like any other city in the world, the moto of the global village seems to be "salvation through mony" in any languages you can imagine.

But I continue to believe that if we can make it there (blossom into "salvation through harmony") we can make it anywhere. Huh... Now I sound like in New-York, New-York. Then Berlin?

I'm not preaching. I'm asking. Note the question mark will you?