Poetry Thursday: Leonard Cohen, W.S.Merwin & Linda McCarriston

Poetry Thursday ... today, Thursday, has been so busy for me with work that I haven't had time to really sit down and make a proper poetry post. Instead I am linking to my sunday post (with an awesome poem by Linda McCarriston) and to my photoblog, where I posted another wonderful poem by W.S.Merwin that I love) ... so please click the link to Sunday's post, Healing the Mare or my photoblog post at Land of Little Rain, for my Poetry Thursday contributions.



Ah, and as an extra bonus, I also wanted to tell you about a wonderful interview of another master of song, lyric and poetry, Leonard Cohen.

A friend sent me a note telling me about the PBS News broadcast tonight -- Leonard Cohen was being interviewed. He has been in my , oh, top three singer/songwriter/poets/lyricists forever ... as long as I can remember. so of course, I wanted to watch the interview. We missed it on tv (not being tuned into tv the way I am) but I am listening to the interview online. Here's the link


I have been thinking off and on, about the Poetry Thursday prompt a couple of weeks ago, to read a poem aloud, or consider the spoken word when writing a poem and how that might or might not change how we understand a poem, or write.... and when I heard Leonard Cohen talking about how a poem's mood can be entirely different depending on who is reading it aloud, and how that person is feeling just before reading, or during the reading .... I thought I'd like to share what he said with the other Poetry thursday contributors.

When asked, "What's the difference between writing a poem and a song?" Cohen replied:

A poem has a different time. For instance, a poem is a very private experience and it doesn't have a driving tempo - in other words, you can go back and forward, you can come back, you can linger. it's a completely different time reference. Whereas a song, you've got a tempo - you've got something that is moving swiftly, you can't stop it. And it's designed to move swiftly from mouth to mouth, heart to heart where a poem really speaks to something that has not itme, and that is a completely different perception.

He also said, "The tempo of a poem "migrates" depending on the mood of the reader."


I wrote this blog post for Poetry Thursday. Check out other poetry posts for this week by clicking this button: