Book of Longing

"Book of Longing" is the first new poetry book by Leonard Cohen since 1984's Book of Mercy. First published in 2006 by McClelland and Stewart, "Book of Longing" contains 167 previously unpublished poems and drawings, mostly written at a Zen monastery on Mount Baldy in California, where Cohen lived from 1994 to 1999, and in India, which he visited regularly during the late 1990s. The book also incorporates a number of poems written after his 1978 book, "Death of a Lady's Man" (not to be confused with his 1977 album, Death of a Ladies' Man). These he left out of his 1984 "Book of Mercy", which contained only psalm-like meditations. "Book of Longing" also collects most of the lyrics to songs from the albums "Ten New Songs" (2001) and "Dear Heather" (2004). Many of these poems were first published at The Blackening Pages of The Leonard Cohen Files [http://www.leonardcohenfiles.com] website.

In 2007, the American composer Philip Glass unveiled a new work, also called "Book of Longing", in which he set several of the book's poems to music. The work was premiered in Toronto, Canada, and was subsequently performed at various venues in the United States and United Kingdom. At the Barbican Centre in London in October 2007, Cohen joined Glass onstage for a pre-concert discussion.

External links

* [http://www.bookoflonging.com bookoflonging.com]
* [http://www.leonardcohenfiles.com/mirror.html The Blackening Pages] of The Leonard Cohen Files