LEONARD COHEN R.I.P.

In early 1965 I was still playing music professionally as part of what I did to earn a living outside the military I was still in, when I saw a documentary called LADIES AND GENTLEMEN LEONARD COHEN. Cohen impressed me so much with his charming way with an audience at poetry readings I thought I saw a way for me to make a life for myself as a poet.

A few months later I finished my four years in the service and got into the Universiy of Iowa Writers Workshop for poetry on the G.I. Bill and made a decision to give up the music outside playing for pleasure and focused on my poetry which had already been published but began being published more widely.

A year later someone told me about Cohen's first record, the poet had become a singer songwriter, and it seemed overnight became famous as that and there I was watching his dust. I met him years later in the 1980s in my Hollywood days and found him just as charming in person as he had been on film so many years before.

I loved his writing and his music and grieve with all of his fans and friends and family. May he rest in poetry.