Various Positions (44 page)

Larry Hoffman has been an energetic and supportive literary agent, and I am indebted to him for his promotion of the project from the first. Doug Pepper of Random House has been a concerned and enthusiastic publisher who, from the beginning, recognized the importance of this project, and, to his credit, saw the value of doing it right, rather than rush it to completion. Nancy Flight has been an outstanding editor whose
good humor masked her astonishment at my first-draft confusions and other lapses of reasonable prose. She also reminded me that biography in practice differs from theory, and prevented me from committing further offenses to the reader in the name of detail. Don Gillmor and Tanya Wood have also brought their editorial skills to the manuscript when it was most needed.

Finally, my thanks to the University of British Columbia Social Science and Humanities Awards Committee for support to initiate this project; to Patrick Dunn, David Truelove, and Patrick Patterson of the University of British Columbia’s Interlibrary Loan division; to Kathleen Garay, Curator of the McClelland & Stewart archive at McMaster University; to Richard Landon, Librarian of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto and Mrs. Edna Hajnal, Curator. Bruce Whiteman, head of the Rare Books division of the MacLennan Library, McGill University, and author of an early bibliography of Cohen, has also been of great assistance.

The following abbreviations have been used for frequently cited titles; initials followed by date indicates an interview
.

1
“tolerated”:
LC
11/14/94

2
“part wolf and part angel”: Anjelica Huston, “Leonard Cohen,”
Interview
(November 1995) 90.

3
“the grocer of despair”: “Field Commander Cohen,”
NS;
also, Steve Lake, “The Grocer of Despair,”
Münchner Stadt Zeitung
14 (1987) 28–29.

4
“poet laureate of pessimism”: Richard Guilliatt, “At Times his Life Has Been Dark,”
Sunday Times
(12 December 1993) 62.

5
“the prince of bummers”: Leon Wieseltier, “The Prince of Bummers,”
New Yorker
(26 July 1993) 41.

6
“music to slit your wrists by”: Nancy Southam, “A Flash of Genius,”
Toronto Star
(20 August 1988) 10.

7
“Thank God Sylvia Plath”: “Love Me, Love My Gun Barrel,”
New Musical Express
(23 February 1980) 24

8
“moody amorousness”: Elysa Gardner, “Leonard Cohen,”
Rolling Stone
(5 August 1993) 28.

9
“There is a confusion”: “Love Me, Love My Gun Barrel,”
New Musical Express
(23 February 1980) 24.

10
“In punishment”:
On the Genealogy of Morals
, tr. Walter Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale (NY: Vintage Books, 1967) 67.

11
“A Zen Man”: Joshu Sasaki Roshi in Steve Sanfield, “The Inner Passage,”
Zen and Hasidism
, compiled by Harold Heifetz (Wheaton, Ill.: Theosophical Publishing House, 1978) 229.

12
“I am formal”: Leonard Cohen to Vince Scelsa, “Idiot’s Delight,”
WXRK-FM (NYC)
6/13/93.

13
“I have to do a lot”:
LC
to VS 6/13/93.

14
“at the very center”:
LC
4/20/95.

15
“just the Beacon”:
LC
4/20/95

16
“the thing you place”:
LC
4/20/95.

17
“Keeping things”:
LC
4/20/95

18
“what I admire”:
BCQ
349

19
“I like to include”:
LC
to Peter Gzowski, CBC Radio 11/18/92

20
“Each book”:
The Gateway
[University of Alberta] (2 December 1966) C4.

21
“has led me”:
LC
5/10/94

22
“I want no attachments”:
BCQ
354

23
“Far from flying”: BL 95–96

1
“deprivation is the mother”: FG 26

2
“What was it like”: FG 24

3
“His father’s death”: FG 24

4
“what happens when”: FG 3

5
“I’ve been digging”:
People
13 (14 January 1980) 55.

6
“nourished all the sleepers”: FG 68

7
“heroic landscapes”: FG 68.

8
“all the English reticence”: FG 21–22

9
“My son, Leonard”: EC 10/23/94

10
“Let him go on”:
BCQ
29

11
“the persecuted brother”: FG 22

12
“He died ripe for”:
BCQ
36

13
“most dreamy spiritual influence”:
People
13 (14 January 1980) 56.

14
“had the flair”:
RVZ
7/19/94

15
“past that happened somewhere else”: PG 124–5

16
“He’d read it again”: Michael Benazon, “Leonard Cohen of Montreal” [interview],
Matrix
23 (Fall 1986) 52.

17
“He swam in it”:
LC
12/29/94

18
“because I wanted”:
Matrix
52

19
“Religion structured”:
LC
in Christian Fevret, “Comme un Guerrier, An Interview with Leonard Cohen,”
Throat Culture
#3 (1992) 22. (The interview originally appeared in the French magazine
Les Inrockuptibles.)

20
“a fat man”:
BCQ
31

21
“walked ahead”:
BCQ
32

22
“part Catholic”: Mark Rowland, “Leonard Cohen’s Nervous Breakthrough,”
Musician Magazine
(July 1988) 106.

23
“Christianity”: Rowland,
Musician Magazine
106.

24
“would continue the story”:
BCQ
27

25
“there was repression”:
LC
in L.S. Dorman and C.L. Rawlins,
Leonard Cohen, Prophet of the Heart
(London: Omnibus, 1990) 27–28.

26
“huge .38”: FG 15

27
“I loved the magic”: BL 163

28
“the gun proved”: FG 16

29
“I didn’t feel”: “Comme un Guerrier” 22

30
“No one looks”:
UT
Notebook

31
“always left on one”:
LC
in Dorman 49

32
“my uncle Horace”:
Matrix
51

33
“I knew how to address”:
Matrix
51

34
“professionals in suffering”:
LC
in Dorman 362

35
“World famous orator”:
Westmount High School Yearbook
(1951) 23.

36
“swam in a Jewish world”:
LC
12/29/94

37
“to go into a system”:
Matrix
53

38
“he wanted to touch”:
BCQ
214

39
“there [was] some tangent”:
BCQ
57

40
“calling on his dead father”:
BCQ
357

41
“a history of injustices”:
BCQ
357

42
“a ferocious instrument”: BBC Radio 7/8/94

43
“I’m a lot better”: BBC Radio 7/8/94

44
“led me into the racket”:
LC
in
Toronto Star
(18 October 1986) G3.

45
“Through the Arch”: Lorca,
Collected Poems
, ed. Christopher Maurer (NY: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1991) 681.

46
“Am I to blame”: Lorca,
Collected Poems
xxv.

47
“I was sitting down”:
LC
in Michael Harris,” Leonard Cohen: The Poet as Hero: 2,”
Saturday Night
(June 1969) 30.

48
“I wanted them”:
LC
in Susan Lumsden, “Leonard Cohen Wants the Unconditional Leadership of the World,”
Weekend Magazine
(12 September 1970) 25.

49
“It is my domain”: “Murray Park at 3 a.m.,”
UT
.

50
“in stone plazas”: “Murray Park,”
UT
.

51
“You [an early love] brought”: “Murray Park,
UT
.

52
“to think of themselves”:
BCQ
87

53
“homemade songs of protest”:
People’s Song Book
(1948; NY: People’s Artists, 1956) 6.

54
“developed a curious notion”: “The Partisan,” Album Notes,
BLC
(1975).

55
“Through my interest”:
LC,
National Public Radio, 5/1/1985

56
“There were no cries for help”:
LC
in “Comme un Guerrier,”
Throat Culture
37.

57
“especially beautiful thighs”: “Fragments of Prose, 1952–56,”
UT

58
“She moved with”: “Prose, 1952–56,”
UT

59
“A smothering sense”: “Prose, 1952–56,”
UT

60
“has something to do with”: “Prose, 1952–56,”
UT

61
“I have never loved”: “Prose, 1952–56”
UT

62
“I have never thought”: “Prose, 1952–56”
UT

63
“love generally”: “Prose, 1953–56,”
UT

64
“life was purely”:
LC,
“Comme un Guerrier,”
Throat Culture
37.

65
“I nursed you”: Freda Guttman 8/11/94

66
“always feeling like”: Nancy Bacal 2/18/94

67
“He seemed”: FG 8/11/94

68
“contain and survive”: NB 2/18/94

1
“If you did things right”: NB 2/18/94

2
“paying off old debts”:
LC
in Harris, “
LC:
The Poet as Hero: 2,”
Saturday Night
27.

3
“limitless space”: NB 2/18/94

4
“ineffectual shower curtains”:
LC,
“Nomination Speech,”
LCA
.

5
“My colleague has promised you”:
LC,
“Address” (February 1956),
UT
.

6
“CIV/n: not a one-man job”: Pound in a letter cited by Louis Dudek in “Louis Dudek,”
Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series
14 (1991): 132; also see Louis Dudek, “Black Mountain Contact, CIV/n Tish, A Memoir,”
Sagetrieb
7 (Spring 1988) 42.

7
“a vital”: “Canadian Culture,”
CIV/n, A Literary Magazine of the 50’s
, ed. Aileen Collins (Montreal: Vehicule Press, 1983) 129.

8
“forced to write”:
CIV/n:
129

9
“For Kulchur’s sake”:
CIV/n: 129

10
“Last night”: IL in Elspeth Cameron,
Irving Layton
(Toronto: Stoddart, 1985) 204.

11
“standing for maximum awareness”: Ezra Pound to Louis Dudek in
Dk/ Some Letters of Ezra Pound
, ed. Louis Dudek (Montreal: DC Books, 1974) 102.

12
“Leonard N. Cohen”:
CIV/n:
126.

13
“secret undulations”:
CIV/n:
112.

14
“swarmed the shadows”:
CIV/n: 112
.

15
“savage integrity”:
LC
to Vin Scelsa, “Idiot’s Delight,” 6/13/93.

16
“voluntarily studying”: Phyllis Webb, “Tibetan Desire,”
Take This Waltz, A Celebration of Leonard Cohen
, ed. Michael Fournier and Ken Norris (St. Anne de Bellevue, Quebec: The Muses’ Company, 1994) 183.

17
“got battered about”: Webb,
Take this Waltz:
184.

18
“That’s where my life”:
LC
in
Matrix
54.

19
“the more restrained”:
LC
in
Matrix
54.

20
“warm and wonderful”:
LC
in Sandra Djwa,
The Politics of the Imagination: A Life of F.R. Scott
(Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1987) 288.