Description
To mark the publication of Leonard Cohen's final book, The Flame, McClelland & Stewart is proud to reissue six beautiful editions of Cohen's cherished early works of poetry.
A freshly packaged series for devoted Leonard Cohen fans and those who wish to discover one of the world's most adored and celebrated writers.
Originally published by McClelland & Stewart in 1964, Flowers for Hitler is Leonard Cohen's third collection of poetry, in which he first experiments with his self-consciously "anti-art" gestures: an attempt, in his own words, to move "from the world of the golden-boy poet into the dung pile of the front-line writer." Haunted by the image of the Nazi concentration camps, the poems are deliberately ugly, tasteless, and confrontational, setting out to destroy the image of Cohen as a sweet romantic poet. Its author was confident in his new direction, telling his publisher at the time that the collection was a masterpiece, and "there [had] never been a book like this, prose or poetry, written in Canada."
About the author
Contributor Notes
LEONARD COHEN's artistic career began in 1956 with the publication of his first book of poetry, Let Us Compare Mythologies. He published two novels, The Favourite Game and Beautiful Losers, and ten previous books of poetry, including Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs and Book of Longing. During a recording career that spanned almost fifty years, he released fourteen studio albums, the last of which, You Want It Darker, was released in 2016. Cohen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008, received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010, and was awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for Literature and the Glenn Gould Prize in 2011. He died on November 7, 2016.
Editorial Reviews
Praise for Leonard Cohen:
"After decades of music and poetry and his two novels and his rightful ascent to the top of the pantheon of artistry (Canadian or otherwise), Cohen still felt relevant and vital. Who better to keep us laughing bitterly through the lonely night? There were so few like him." —Globe and Mail
"A pop hero, he's probably the first Canadian poet of any age to achieve geunine fame abroad as well as at home." —Toronto Star
"He has a European sensibility, and he dovetails it with his jet-setting internationalism; always with a slight political undercurrent buzzing through. The poetry has this sort of free-floating world view and I love his use of image and turns of phrase, the meaning and the paradoxes that go along with being alive." —Fred Wah, National Post
