🚀 go-pugleaf

On Thursday, June 23, 2022 at 8:05:22 AM UTC-4, Will Dockery wrote:
> Victor H. wrote: 
> 
> > Will Dockery wrote: 
> 
> >> On Wednesday, June 1, 2022 at 12:25:22 AM UTC-4, michaelmalef...@gmail.com wrote: 
> >>> On Tuesday, May 31, 2022 at 11:30:15 PM UTC-4, Will Dockery wrote: 
> >>> > Zod wrote: 
> >>> > 
> >>> > > George J. Dance wrote: 
> >>> > 
> >>> > >> On 2022-05-30 10:11 p.m., Will Dockery wrote: 
> >>> > >> 
> >>> > >>> Your ignorance is showing again, Pendragon. 
> >>> > >>> 
> >>> > >>> Leonard Cohen was a successful poet years before he became a Folk Rock singer. 
> >>> > >>> 
> >>> > 
> >>> > >> Indeed he was. 
> >>> > 
> >>> > >> "In 1961, McClelland & Stewart published Cohen's 2nd collection, The 
> >>> > >> Spice-Box of Earth (1961), which received rave reviews and sold out its 
> >>> > >> 1st printing. The book made him a public figure in Canada.[12] The book 
> >>> > >> also helped Cohen gain critical recognition as an important new voice in 
> >>> > >> Canadian poetry. Cohen biographer Ira Nadel stated that "reaction to the 
> >>> > >> finished book was enthusiastic and admiring.... The critic Robert Weaver 
> >>> > >> found it powerful and declared that Cohen was 'probably the best young 
> >>> > >> poet in English Canada right now.'"[13] 
> >>> > 
> >>> > >>> HTH and HAND. 
> >>> > 
> >>> > >> He's probably better known as a singer/songwriter, but anyone who's 
> >>> > >> learned anything about Cohen knows that he was a poet first. 
> >>> > 
> >>> > > Now try and get that across to the stupid V.D. Boy, the ignorant poetry bigot... ha ha. 
> >>> > Pendragon finally seems to have stopped playing stupid and has accepted that Leonard Cohen was a poet years before becoming a singer-songwriter. 
> >>> 
> >>> 
> >>> What I said was that he was a successful folksinger/songwriter who parlayed his singing fame into a career as a "poet." 
> 
> >> You have it backwards, then. 
> 
> >> Leonard Cohen was a poet long before he was a singer 
> 
> > By several years in fact....
> Pendragon knew better but fell on his face trying to imitate PJR.

Only to an imbecile who can't understand the concept of *earning a living.*

"...it is incumbent on me to say that I think nothing in this volume ["The Raven and Other Poems"] of much value to the public, or very creditable to myself. Events not to be controlled have prevented me from making, at any time, any serious effort in what, under happier circumstances, would have been the field of my choice."
-- Edgar A. Poe

Do you understand what Poe is saying here, Will? He was *unable* to pursue the career of a poet because he was forced to work for a living (as an editor, literary critic, essayist, fiction writer, etc.).

Poe, IMO, was the greatest poet who ever lived. He is certainly one of the best known poets in the world today. Yet Poe did *not* consider himself to have been a successful poet. And the reason he did not, was because he did not have the economic freedom to pursue poetry full time.

His statement has nothing to do with wealth and/or fame, for he continues:

"With me poetry has been not a purpose, but a passion; and the passions should be held in reverence; they must not — they cannot at will be excited, with an eye to the paltry compensations, or the more paltry commendations, of mankind."

Poe believed that he had failed in his dream of becoming a poet because he was financially unable to work at his poetry on a full-time basis -- which success as a poet requires.

Leonard Cohen couldn't find any (financial) success as a poet. So he tried his hand at writing novels, and failing to achieve success as a novelist, he tried his hand at being a folksinger.

His success as a folksinger gave him the necessary financial security, and name recognition, to find (financial) success in the poetry world.