Book of Longing was the first new poetry book by Leonard Cohen since 1984's Book of Mercy. First published in 2006 by McClelland and Stewart, Book of Longing contains 167 previously unpublished poems and drawings, mostly written at a Zen monastery on Mount Baldy in California, where Cohen lived from 1994 to 1999, and in India, which he visited regularly during the late 1990s. The book also incorporates a number of poems written after his 1978 book, Death of a Lady's Man . These presumably were left out of his 1984 Book of Mercy, which contained only psalm-like meditations. Book of Longing also collects some of the lyrics to songs from the albums Ten New Songs and Dear Heather . Many of these poems were first published at The Blackening Pages of The Leonard Cohen Files [1] website.
“At first first nothing will happen to us
and later on
it will happen to us again.”
Variant: first of all nothing will happen
and a little later
nothing will happen again
Source: Book of Longing
“The sweetest little song:
You go your way
I'll go your way too!”
Variant: You go your way
I'll go your way too
Source: Book of Longing
“I know she is coming
I know she will look
And that is the longing
And this is the book.”
Source: Book of Longing
“My page was too white
My ink was too thin
The day wouldn't write
What the night pencilled in”
Source: Book of Longing
