Leonard Cohen poet-novelist-songwriter-singer. In his eloquent search for what he calls a "state of grace" -the kind of balance with which one rises to the chaos around him- Leonard Cohen eludes the restrictions of genres and generations. Selected Poems includes many of the ecstatically lyric poems first published in The Spice-Box of Earth, and over one hundred poems, many with strong social and religious overtones, from three volumes previously published only in Canada.

Collected for the firt time are twenty-three newly writen songs and verses that have the stark power of fairy tales. With his flowing lines and sensory images, he is equally adept at free-verse storytelling and more traditional forms. His wry humor adds poignancy to simple agony, as in the graffiti-like lines, "Marita/please find me/ I am almost thirty." Eclectic, searching, the voice of Leonard Cohen is above all deeply personal.