- Hardcover
- Publisher: McClelland & Stewart; First Edition edition (Nov 6 1993)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 077102231X
- ISBN-13: 978-0771022319
- Product Dimensions: 23.9 x 15.7 x 3.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 862 g
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #527,776 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
The publication of Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs brought Leonard Cohen's poetry, which had long been obscured by his intermittently prolific recording career, back into prominence. His poems will be instantly familiar to fans of his music or novels; they share the same cynical romanticism, morbid eroticism, and ironic humour. Many of his poems are spare and declamatory, relying on the intensity of their imagery and the wryness of their speaker to produce their effect. The opening lines of "The Drawer's Condition on November 28, 1961" are exemplary:
Is there anything emptierCohen is such an old-fashioned bard that it is often difficult to believe he inhabits the same literary landscape that nurtures postmodern experimentalism. Most of his poems are richly lyrical, which made his turn to songwriting a natural one. Published collections of lyrics are seldom very satisfying, though, and even Cohen's best songs, such as the unforgettable "Suzanne" or the spare and sublime "Anthem," lose most of their intensity on paper. Stranger Music contains material from nearly all of Cohen's important works; even his experimental novel Beautiful Losers is represented. Cohen has published very little new material since 1983's Book of Mercy, and, unless he enters another period of productivity, Stranger Music will remain the definitive Cohen collection for a very long time. --Jack Illingworth
than the drawer where
you used to store your opium?
How like a black-eyed Susan
blinded into ordinary daisy
is my pretty kitchen drawer!
How like a nose sans nostrils
is my bare wooden drawer!
How like an eggless basket!
How like a pool sans tortoise!
Review
“Stranger Music brings together, at last, the words of a Canadian artist who has been anything but a stranger to so many of us for so long.…Cohen has woven a chain of words that binds us together.”
–Calgary Herald
“Stranger Music is a massive record of the poet’s imaginative journey through beauty, through horror, through the extremes of love and despair.…Cohen is always a poet of extremes: that’s where he lives, at the edges of them.”
–Toronto Star
“Stranger Music is a record of Cohen’s dispatches from the front, an invaluable record of a shining voice. It burns still.”
–Ottawa Citizen
–Calgary Herald
“Stranger Music is a massive record of the poet’s imaginative journey through beauty, through horror, through the extremes of love and despair.…Cohen is always a poet of extremes: that’s where he lives, at the edges of them.”
–Toronto Star
“Stranger Music is a record of Cohen’s dispatches from the front, an invaluable record of a shining voice. It burns still.”
–Ottawa Citizen
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beauty Upon Beauty,
By Wenzowsa (Saskatchewan) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs (Paperback)
In 1996, I received this book as a present from my (then) best friend. I remember being initially skeptical of "Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs", and wondering, 'What can this old man tell me about life?' Leonard Cohen could tell me plenty, apparently: life, love, beauty, sex, passion, death, religion. His words spoke to me and now they continue to resonate with me.The friendship with my friend has since ended; however, this book has now become one of my most favourite and prized possessions. It's the perfect starting place for anyone who is curious about Leonard Cohen's work or is looking for poetry that is beautiful (and accessible), It is truly a wonderful anthology.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stranger Music: Collected Works of a 20th Century Mystic,
By Samuel Hensley (Pensacola, Florida USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs (Hardcover)
"There is a mood for which Beethoven is too loud, and Bach too wise, and silence too good for a filthy heart such as beats in my breast." --It's Probably SpringAnd for all of these moods, there is Leonard Cohen. To many, Leonard Cohen is known only as a sub-mainstream musician and sometime theologian; yet the scope of his artistic genius reaches far beyond music and religious thought. Stranger Music, a collection of his works from 1956-1993, provides the uninitiated Cohen reader with a broad sampling of poetry and prose excerpts, offering everything from lucid and uplifting spirituality (a la Book of Mercy) to darker confessional stylings. Any fan of modern literature would be well advised to incorporate this anthology into his collection. At times conventional, at times avant-garde, Cohen is a writer that transcends genre and accurate definition, and in doing so probes the collective unconscious for themes which pertain to all of modern humanity. His questions, and many of his answers, all presented in his easily accessible style, are universally applicaple, and an experience well worth the reading. For any passionate-literate individual who seeks an artistic alternative to the nihilism of our time, this man speaks for you. Spend the twelve bucks. You'll congradulate yourself on the investment.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Music to My Hungry Eyes,
By "feith9" (Kitchener, Ontario) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs (Paperback)
I've been reading Leonard Cohen since I was 13 and in love with the words "freakish nipples". In Stranger Music, I find myself presented with a feast of words by the man I crushed on from the first moment I heard his voice.My copy is dog-eared and coffee stained after years of returning to it again and again. Covering everything he's ever written in as lush a way as a volume this tightly edited will allow, everyone will find something to fall in love with in this book. Highly recommended and I'd say that even if I wasn't crazy in love with him. ;) Feith
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