More thoughts on poetry

During the summer, I went to see 'I'm Your Man', a documentary about Leonard Cohen, centred on a tribute concert that was staged for him by admiring fellow performers a couple of years ago.

The poster for the film featured a quotation from 'the great man':

"Poetry is only the natural by-product of existence. If our lives are burning well, poetry is the ash."

As I observed to a few of my friends at the time, this is the kind of line that is initially attractive, but soon starts to grate. It sounds good, but.... actually it's complete tosh.

Like most of LC's work, you might well say! Sorry, I am a bit of a Cohen sceptic: I very much enjoy his songs, his music, his lugubrious persona - but I think he's 'good' rather than 'great', and scarcely deserving of the title of 'poet'.

This statement seems too general - as if he's saying that everyone can, does produce poetry. Ash is a waste-product, so the metaphor threatens to take an unwelcome turn towards the negative there. And in what sense is poetry produced by our lives "burning well"? Doesn't most poetry, on the contrary, come from our lives turning to shit?

Sorry, Leonard - a nice try, but I don't quite buy it.

I was reminded of one of my favourite lines from Pablo Neruda, which also suggests the ease and naturalness which poetic composition (sometimes) achieves; but he made the point far more appositely, far, far more beautifully. Neruda was a poet, and Cohen ain't.

"A poem falls to the soul like dew on grass."