Poetry and Pop: Leonard Cohen
Canadian Poet/Singer Spans Genre as Both Popular and Fine Artist
Canadian poet and folk singer Leonard Cohen combined poetry and popular song throughout his career, intuitively rejecting distinctions between "high" and "low" art.
Popularity for any sort of artist is a double-edged sword, as if someone cannot have both artistic merit and mass appeal. Canadian poet/novelist/musician Leonard Cohen flouts this expectation, making it into Oxford University’s 20th Century Poetry & Poetics alongside T.S. Eliot, Robert Bly, and Robert Frost, as well as onto the soundtrack for Natural Born Killers alongside Nine Inch Nails, Jane’s Addiction, and Dr. Dre.
Interestingly, with Cohen, if one does not already know which lyric has been set to music, it’s difficult to tell the “high” poetry from the “low” pop song. For example:
From “As the Mist Leaves No Scar:”
As the mist leaves no scar
On the dark green hill,
So my body leaves no scar
On you, nor ever will (1-4).
From “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye:”
I loved you in the morning,
our kisses deep and warm,
your hair upon the pillow
like a sleepy golden storm (1-4)
Which of these is an acclaimed poem immortalized in a definitive collection of twentieth century poetry, and which did Judy Collins cover? There are similarities: both love songs, both employ simile, similar rhymes schemes, colour imagery. They are both visceral and ethereal at once; the basics of the body with scars and kisses, the images of nature, the more elusive concepts of love and sex nearly unarticulated but present.
In fact, they are both songs, but the former was a poem first. Without the synthesizers, who would have been able to tell the difference? Just how arbitrary are these distinctions?
At the same time, the line between “high” art and “pop” art seems to be blurring in influence, if not category. The influence of so-called pop culture on poetry and art in the twentieth century is virtually undeniable, with artists like Andy Warhol marrying social comment, pop images, and academic art. In the years since Warhol added “pop” to art, pop art displaying famous cartoons and cultural icons are still extremely popular, with whole galleries devoted to its creation and sale. That said, “high” and “pop” art are still distinct groups to most people.
Cohen performed a marriage of poetry and pop without reference to cultural assumptions. He has taken the poetry of other writers he admires, and set it to music in a way that is respectful to the words and also innovative. “Take This Waltz” is, fittingly, a waltz that sets Federico Garcia Lorca’s poem, “Little Viennese Waltz.” “Go No More A-Roving” is a poignant tribute to his mentor, Irving Layton, taking the poem by Lord Byron and setting it to a sweet pop melody.
A year before he refused the Governor General’s Award for Poetry (1968), Cohen released his first album. Both music and literature have each accorded him success in their own ways; his poetry has made him the first post-modern tortured young man, following in the footsteps of Byron, a young Tennyson; he was heralded as a new James Joyce with the publication of Beautiful Losers. At the same time, he is referred to as the Canadian Bob Dylan. His music and his poetry have grown together, not in opposition to one another. And if this is the case, can his music really be considered “low” art?
