Leonard Cohen — Book of Mercy “I,8”

having a cup of coffee in Dublin and we talked about poetry as we often do and he said to

me, "Have I ever read Book of Mercy by Leonard Cohen?" and I hadn't. I was a fan of Leonard Cohen but I hadn't read any of his poetry and he produced a copy of it from his bag and gave it to me and it was one of my favorite books and then another friend a couple of years later Peter Wilson, a columnist, borrowed the book and then kind of apologetically said to me, "I'm keeping a book because I need it." I loved his audacity and I have since purchased

many copies of that book and I can't hang out at any of them. I keep them giving them away.

I feel like it's a book that wants to go places. I love it. It has changed me and changed the way

“I think and it has risen to the very top of everything that I love about Leonard Cohen.”

Number eight from Leonard Cohen's Book of Mercy. In the eyes of men, he falls and in his own eyes too. He falls from his high place. He trips on his achievement. He falls to you. He falls to know you. It is sad they say. See his disgrace. Say the ones that is here. But he falls radiantly toward the light to which he falls. They cannot see who lifts him as he falls or how his falling changes and he himself the wilderness till his heart cries out to bless the

one who holds him in his falling. And in his fall he hears his heart cry out. His heart explains why he is falling. Why he had to fall and he gives over to the fall. Blessed are you. Class of falling.

“He falls into the sky. He falls into the light. None can hurt him as he falls. Blessed are you shield”

of falling. Rapt in his fall concealed within his fall. He finds his place. He is gathered in. While his hair streams back and his clothes tear and the wind. He is held up, comforted. He enters into the place of his fall. Blessed are you. Embrace of the falling. Foundation of the light. Master of the human accident. So Leonard Cohen was a pillar of art and deep admiration for me and for millions of others.

He was a poet and a songwriter. Canadian an artist, a real romantic, a visual artist as well with ink and drawings and paintings. He was a Zen Buddhist practitioner for a number of years.

“He was a consummate performer aware of beautiful suits and a convener of the most extraordinary”

artists in his public concerts. One of the first things I learned when I learned to play the

guitar at the age of 11 was Susanne. I suppose I had a connection with Leonard Cohen through music right from then. The older I get, the more I like his work and the more I appreciate how it is that he kept on changing, kept on looking at that which drew his gaze and amongst everything that he's done. Absolutely amongst everything. Book of mercy is my favorite. He said that this book was about the heart emerging from being shattered and turning to the source of mercy. He called it

a little book of prayers and he said that writing these was like prayer. He was looking for healing. And he also said that he was not a master of a spiritual tradition when he was writing this. It does borrow enormously this whole book from his own Jewish tradition. But he said that he wrote as a civilian that this was not a prescription. This was not a way for anybody else to have to follow. This was him seeking a way for himself. There's a rawness throughout the whole book and

a deep privacy as well. The book is called Book of Mercy, not the Book of Mercy. And I like the modesty of that because to describe something as the Book of Mercy might be prescriptive to other people in just calling it Book of Mercy. I feel like he's saying this is for himself and other people can write their own Book of Mercy. And this got 50 poems in a styled and a certain sense after

the year. He himself turned 50. I don't know if there's any correlation on that. But I'm looking

“back on the history of his life. I see a little bit of poetry even in the coincidence of the”

publication of it then. This is number eight in Book of Mercy and this whole poem is short. It's just over 200 words. And all of the poems in Book of Mercy are in a kind of a block, prose poem form. It looks like a paragraph. None of them are title. They're just numbered. And the numbers at the top of the page and then this large empty gap before the poem appears in the page between the number and then the

first word of that poem. Sometimes that means that the poem is spread over two pages even though

it doesn't need to be if it had started a little bit further up in the page where it was numbered.

“I always like that element of Book of Mercy because the space in the page feels like a visual breath”

or feels like going deeper. It asks for a deep inhale or a deep be ready. And in this poem and there's such repetition, fall or falling or falls that word or derivative is of it occur 22 times and hard occurs three times and the word he occurs 20 times. Every time Leonard Cohen spoke about this book, he spoke about it in such autobiographical terms that it does seem like he's outside himself watching himself narrating himself. It's like we're listening to a private prayer

or a private narration or somebody who was hoping for a little bit of distance from himself in order to be able to say something about what the order in the chaos is or the outcome or the encounter perhaps that might be the better way of saying it, the encounter that might occur in the chaos. A man just writing for himself who nonetheless feels like he's at the edge of himself. Falling off the edge perhaps or falling from grace, falling into disrepute,

the repetition of falling all these ways brings all of these kinds of phrases to mind. And there's such a recognition of shame at the beginning of the poem. He believes in a certain sense that the falling, whatever that falling is, whatever that falling apart is, is something of shame. In the eyes of many falls and in his own eyes too, he's been in a

high place of achievement perhaps or ambition and then there's sadness and another word, a powerful

word, disgrace to feel disgraced as an extraordinary painful word, a disassembling word. And so many of us had various times in our lives for various reasons, for various lengths of time, have felt at the edge of ourselves, have felt disgrace to her that we fall in in the eyes of other people who've been looking at us. Something happens and the sadness and the disgrace that we

“feared so much becomes the sadness and the disgrace that we experience. And this poem, I think,”

is trying to turn that experience around, but it's also a poem that recognizes and demonstrates huge empathy towards any of us who have ever felt in that position. One of the other repetitions in this particular poem from Book of Mercy is the word you, here are all the ways in which the word you occurs. He falls to you. He falls to know you. Blessed are you, class of falling. Blessed are you, shield of falling. Blessed are you in brace of the falling,

foundation of the light, master of the human accident. He had called this book, an icon

called a little book of prayer. And his art always included this really interesting mix of reverence

and sensuality, a lot of references to Jewish family and identity and his own Buddhist practice as well, and picking up another religious traditions as well. And he mixed all of those with obscurity and strangeness and wonder and sex and poetry and sensuality. This poem is so direct by turning to something that really does sound like a new form of prayer. These addresses to the you. He's looking for a turn in his life. He was hoping for some kind of healing and he was writing

He falls radiantly toward the light to which he falls and then he's lifted, but willed it

“till his heart cries out to bless the one who holds him in his falling. I feel like what he's doing”

is trying to not tell the future, but make the future. Looking into the experience of devastation or disgrace or the edge of himself or falling, whatever it is that's occurring or however somebody would describe that and he's trying to write a fiction perhaps, some kind of language, some kind of music, some kind of liturgy that might osher in the kind of thing that he's hoping to feel.

He's fallen devastatingly, but he is somehow held up and the writing of the poem,

the writing of a prayer, the naming of a desire, the naming of a shame, and in a certain sense, the self-redeeming of that by giving the redemption of that to a you who catches him in his falling.

“All of that turns him towards some kind of aspect of devotion, some kind of wonder that helps”

him to recover and turn a story of shame, a story of falling into a story of embrace. The repetition of Blessed or You, in this poem comes directly from the service in Synagogue, Baruchata Adonai Blessed or You Lord, and he has taken that form from the service and turned it into something for himself. He's shaped it into what he needed to hear, and by shaping it like that, perhaps there's an indication that nothing else in his life

was saying that to him, that he needed it to be made and you for him, in something that sounded a bit like him, and that had a taste of his own religion, a taste of his own masculinity,

“a taste of his own sensuality, as well as a taste of his own devastation, and the desire,”

which is such an extraordinary powerful thing in him to be met in his fall by something that would

gather him in and comfort him and hold him. This is not a weak idea, this is a powerful idea, and one that probably all of us will need either in the past or in the present or in the future of our lives to find a way to wrap the disgrace we might feel for one thing or another, into something that could gather, into the master of the human accident. Number 8. From Leonard Cohen's Book of Mercy

In the eyes of men he falls, and in his own eyes too, he falls from his high place, he trips on his achievement, he falls to you, he falls to know you, it is sad they say, see his disgrace say the ones that is healed, but he falls radially toward the light to which he falls. They cannot see who lifts him as he falls, or how his falling changes, and he himself bewildered till his heart cries out to bless the one who holds him in his falling.

And in his fall he hears his heart cry out, his heart explains why he is falling, why he has to fall, and he gives over to the fall. Blessed are you, clasp of falling, he falls into the sky, he falls into the light, known can hurt him as he falls. Blessed are you, shield of falling, wrapped in his fall, concealed within his fall, he finds his place, he is gathered in,

while his hair streams back, and his clothes tear in the wind, he is held up, comforted, he enters into the place of his fall, blessed are you, embrace of the falling, foundation of the light, master of the human accident. Book of Mercy, one part-age by Leonard Cohen, can be found in Book of Mercy, originally published in 1984, available in the United States through Willard Books and through Canon Gate Books in the

United Kingdom. A special thanks to them for permission to use this poem to Jamie Bing of Canon Gate

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