The Flame

Poems Notebooks Lyrics Drawings

Leonard Cohen

There are very, very few people who occupy the ground that Leonard Cohen walks on.” —Bono

The Flame is the final work from Leonard Cohen, the revered poet and musician whose fans span generations and whose work is celebrated throughout the world. Featuring poems, excerpts from his private notebooks, lyrics, and hand-drawn self-portraits, The Flame offers an unprecedentedly intimate look inside the life and mind of a singular artist.

A reckoning with a life lived deeply and passionately, with wit and panache, The Flame is a valedictory work.

“This volume contains my father’s final efforts as a poet,” writes Cohen’s son, Adam Cohen, in his foreword. “It was what he was staying alive to do, his sole breathing purpose at the end.”

Leonard Cohen died in late 2016. But “each page of paper that he blackened,” in the words of his son, “was lasting evidence of a burning soul.”

Leonard Cohen was a hugely influential Canadian poet, songwriter, and cultural icon who died on the eve of the 2016 presidential election. His “Hallelujah” is widely considered the redemptive song of the resistance. Cohen’s many canonical songs (“Suzanne,” “So Long, Marianne,” “Famous Blue Raincoat,” “Dance Me to the End of Love,” and others) have earned him a place in the small pantheon that includes Bob Dylan and Patti Smith. Cohen’s many honors include a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, a Prince of Asturias Award for Literature, and election to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.