Leonard Cohen : An Appreciation

Leonard Cohen's poetry is more in a tradition of King David than of his mentor and friend, Irving Layton, to whom THE BOOK OF LONGING is dedicated.

Living on Hydra, with Marianna and her young son, Axel, in the 1960's, he learned to speak fluent Greek, and it is this knowledge, care, and precision, which, over 30 years later, permitted him to render Cavafy's great poem, THE GOD ABANDONS ANTONY, into the extraordinary lyric, ALEXANDRA LEAVING.