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Authors: Ira B. Nadel
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mother. But its rewards were too seductive. Cohen invited women to his new rooms, serenaded them, and read them poems. As the narrator of
Beauty at Close Quarters
reports, “He knew what minor chords went with what hours of the morning, which poems were too vicious, which too sweet…. He wasn’t so much trying to accumulate women as he was ideal episodes.”
After Cohen graduated, he began law school for a term but his real interest was still in writing. At this time, Layton, Souster, and Dudek created the McGill Poetry Series to provide a new outlet for young poets. Works by Pierre Coupey, David Solway, Daryl Hine, and Cohen appeared. But when Dudek offered the first volume in the series to Cohen, he was, in Dudek’s words, “slow and reluctant to present his manuscript for editing.” Dudek, in fact, didn’t see the completed manuscript of
Let Us Compare Mythologies
until the book was published. Part of the reason for Cohen’s reluctance was Dudek’s rejection of “the sentimental late-romantic tradition in poetry” to which Cohen was partial. Upholding this tradition was itself a form of rebellion against the modernism of Dudek and others, vividly seen in the work of Pound, William Carlos Williams, and Charles Olson.
Let Us Compare Mythologies
contains poems written largely when Cohen was between the ages of fifteen and twenty and went through four drafts before he felt it could be printed. Cohen masterminded the entire publication, assuming responsiblity for the design, typesetting, production, and paper. His friend Freda Guttman prepared illustrations, and he paid the $300 cost to have the work produced in hardcover, rather than paperback, as Dudek had originally planned. Ruth Wisse, then feature editor of the
McGill Daily
, headed the so-called sales teamwhich operated by advance subscription only. She alone sold over two hundred advance copies. Cohen also distributed order forms for the book in campus cafes and bookstores. He sold out the approximately four hundred printed copies.
The book appeared in May with a statement about the series on the back jacket emphasizing its uniqueness and Dudek’s role. The inscription on the copy presented to Dudek by Cohen reads:
To Louis Dudek, teacher and friend, who more than anyone wanted me to bring out this book, and whose encouragement and help is deeply appreciated by every young person writing at McGill—
Leonard Cohen
May 1956
Despite increasing differences with Dudek, whose own poetry of ideas and championing of Pound contradicted Cohen’s pull toward romanticism, metaphysics, and sensuality, and despite Dudek’s later belief that becoming a singer undermined Cohen’s talents as a writer, Cohen always valued Dudek’s contribution to his work. He knew that Dudek understood him. “Leonard always had an image of himself as a rabbi,” Dudek has said. Cohen unexpectedly appeared at Dudek’s retirement party in the mid-eighties and was delighted that it was Dudek who presented him to the McGill Chancellor for his honorary doctorate in June 1992. At the ceremony, Dudek summarized Cohen’s McGill years with a gentle jibe: “I was fortunate to see him occasionally in my classes in his young days at McGill.” He closed with a fatherly question about Cohen’s status as a celebrity: “But Leonard, is all this fame really good for you?” After praising Cohen’s integrity and search for personal truth, Dudek concluded, “He has won through, so far as anyone can win through, in this difficult struggle of life.”
The “personal truth” Dudek cited in 1992 is evident in the forty-four poems of
Let Us Compare Mythologies
(1956). The themes are remarkable for a twenty-two-year-old encountering the power of romantic love and shattered by the reality of loss. “Elegy,” a poem marking the death of his father, is the first poem in the text; “Beside the Shepherd,” a poem celebrating the resurrection of life, is the last. Patrimony, inheritance,history,
Beauty at Close Quarters
reports, “He knew what minor chords went with what hours of the morning, which poems were too vicious, which too sweet…. He wasn’t so much trying to accumulate women as he was ideal episodes.”
After Cohen graduated, he began law school for a term but his real interest was still in writing. At this time, Layton, Souster, and Dudek created the McGill Poetry Series to provide a new outlet for young poets. Works by Pierre Coupey, David Solway, Daryl Hine, and Cohen appeared. But when Dudek offered the first volume in the series to Cohen, he was, in Dudek’s words, “slow and reluctant to present his manuscript for editing.” Dudek, in fact, didn’t see the completed manuscript of
Let Us Compare Mythologies
until the book was published. Part of the reason for Cohen’s reluctance was Dudek’s rejection of “the sentimental late-romantic tradition in poetry” to which Cohen was partial. Upholding this tradition was itself a form of rebellion against the modernism of Dudek and others, vividly seen in the work of Pound, William Carlos Williams, and Charles Olson.
Let Us Compare Mythologies
contains poems written largely when Cohen was between the ages of fifteen and twenty and went through four drafts before he felt it could be printed. Cohen masterminded the entire publication, assuming responsiblity for the design, typesetting, production, and paper. His friend Freda Guttman prepared illustrations, and he paid the $300 cost to have the work produced in hardcover, rather than paperback, as Dudek had originally planned. Ruth Wisse, then feature editor of the
McGill Daily
, headed the so-called sales teamwhich operated by advance subscription only. She alone sold over two hundred advance copies. Cohen also distributed order forms for the book in campus cafes and bookstores. He sold out the approximately four hundred printed copies.
The book appeared in May with a statement about the series on the back jacket emphasizing its uniqueness and Dudek’s role. The inscription on the copy presented to Dudek by Cohen reads:
To Louis Dudek, teacher and friend, who more than anyone wanted me to bring out this book, and whose encouragement and help is deeply appreciated by every young person writing at McGill—
Leonard Cohen
May 1956
Despite increasing differences with Dudek, whose own poetry of ideas and championing of Pound contradicted Cohen’s pull toward romanticism, metaphysics, and sensuality, and despite Dudek’s later belief that becoming a singer undermined Cohen’s talents as a writer, Cohen always valued Dudek’s contribution to his work. He knew that Dudek understood him. “Leonard always had an image of himself as a rabbi,” Dudek has said. Cohen unexpectedly appeared at Dudek’s retirement party in the mid-eighties and was delighted that it was Dudek who presented him to the McGill Chancellor for his honorary doctorate in June 1992. At the ceremony, Dudek summarized Cohen’s McGill years with a gentle jibe: “I was fortunate to see him occasionally in my classes in his young days at McGill.” He closed with a fatherly question about Cohen’s status as a celebrity: “But Leonard, is all this fame really good for you?” After praising Cohen’s integrity and search for personal truth, Dudek concluded, “He has won through, so far as anyone can win through, in this difficult struggle of life.”
The “personal truth” Dudek cited in 1992 is evident in the forty-four poems of
Let Us Compare Mythologies
(1956). The themes are remarkable for a twenty-two-year-old encountering the power of romantic love and shattered by the reality of loss. “Elegy,” a poem marking the death of his father, is the first poem in the text; “Beside the Shepherd,” a poem celebrating the resurrection of life, is the last. Patrimony, inheritance,history,
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