Let Us Compare Mythologies: Leonard Cohen's First Poetry Book―The Original 1956 Canadian Edition, Fully Restored - Hardcover

Cohen, Leonard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0061173754 ISBN 13: 9780061173752

Publisher: Ecco, 2007

Synopsis

“There is no difference between a poem and a song. Some were songs first and some were poems first and some were simultaneous." -Leonard Cohen

Published in 1956 when he was twenty-two years old, Let Us Compare Mythologies is Leonard Cohen's first book. Long out of print, it is now available exactly as it appeared at publication as one of the four hundred copies published by the McGill Poetry Series in Canada, with its original cover and illustrations by Canadian artist Freda Guttman.

This collection features poems such as:

• "The Captain"
• "To the Unknown Woman"
• "For E.G."

About this title

About the Author

Leonard Cohen was born in Montreal in 1934. He is the author of twelve books, including, most recently, the national bestseller Book of Longing, and has released seventeen albums.

From the Back Cover

Published in 1956 when he was twenty-two years old, Let Us Compare Mythologies is Leonard Cohen's first book. Long out of print, it is now available exactly as it appeared fifty years ago as one of the four hundred copies published by the McGill Poetry Series in Canada, with its original cover and illustrations by Canadian artist Freda Guttman.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Let Us Compare Mythologies

By Leonard Cohen

Ecco

Copyright © 2007 Leonard Cohen
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780061173752

Chapter One

for wilf and his house


When young the Christians told me
how we pinned Jesus
like a lovely butterfly against the wood,
and I wept beside paintings of Calvary
at velvet wounds
and delicate twisted feet.

But he could not hang softly long,
your fighters so proud with bugles,
bending flowers with their silver stain,
and when I faced the Ark for counting,
trembling underneath the burning oil,
the meadow of running flesh turned sour
and I kissed away my gentle teachers,
warned my younger brothers.

Among the young and turning-­great
of the large nations, innocent
of the spiked wish and the bright crusade,
there I could sing my heathen tears
between the summersaults and chestnut battles,
love the distant saint
who fed his arm to flies,
mourn the crushed ant
and despise the reason of the heel.

Continues...

Excerpted from Let Us Compare Mythologiesby Leonard Cohen Copyright © 2007 by Leonard Cohen. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: Ecco
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0061173754
• ISBN 13: 9780061173752
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 96