Scobie S. Intricate Preparations: Writing Leonard Cohen

Toronto: ECW Press. — 2000 — 240 p. — ISBN10: 1550224336; ISBN13: 978-1550224337.This essay collection reflects the scope and reach of Leonard Cohen’s influence. It ranges from academic essays that consider the treatment of the Holocaust in Cohen’s poetry, aspects of personal and national identity in his novels, and the theoretical problems of performance in his songs, to less formal discussions such as an Internet newsgroup thread on “Closing Time” and a description of fan reactions to his concert performances in Germany. Several writers pay tribute to Cohen by contributing poems that “translate” his work into new idioms. The book also includes two new poems by Cohen himself. Intricate Preparations is fully international in scope, with contributions coming from Australia, Great Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Norway, and Finland, as well as Canada—including something from the Governor-General herself.Adrienne Clarkson. Counterpoint Leonard Cohen.
Stephen Scobie. Introduction.
Doug Beardsley. On First Looking into Leonard Cohen.
Kevin Flynn. Balanced on Wooden Stilts and Dancing: What Irving Layton Taught Me about Leonard Cohen.
Frank Davey. Beautiful Losers: Leonard Cohen's Postcolonial Novel.
Petek Wilkins. "Nightmares of Identity": Nationalism and Loss in Beautiful Lasers.
Geoffrey Wren. Letter.
Jenny L.M. Kerber. "There is a crack in everything": Preservation, Fortification, and Destruction in The Favourite Game.
Carmen Ellison. "Not My Real Face": Corporeal Grammar in The Favourite Game.
Susan Macfarlane. The Voice of Trust in Leonard Cohen.
Carol Matthews. "So Long, Marianne".
Henning Franz. Poem.
Cynthia Cecil. Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Leonard Cohen... Mr. Ralph Gustafson.
100 Famous Blue Raincoat: A Symposium.
Ruthanne Wrobel. Four Grounds: Ways to Play in Cohen's Garden of Verses.
Robert De Young. "My Black Pages": Reconsidering Death of a Lady's Man and Death of a Ladies' Man.
Jarkko Arjatsalo. Your Man On-Line.
Ed. by Stephen ScobIe. Who's the Boss? An Internet discussion on "Closing Time".
Kiwi Schuster. Poems.
Lori Emerson and Joe Hooper. Miming Differance: Leonard Cohen Live.
Christof Graf. Leonard Cohen Live in Germany, 1993.
Sandra Wynands. The Representation of the Holocaust in Flowers for Hitler.
Peter Jaeger. When to Write Prose (for Leonard Cohen).
Robert David Stagey. Pornographic Sublime: Beautiful Losers and Narrative Excess.
Paul Milton. Beyond Agonistics: Vertiginous Games in the Fiction of Leonard Cohen.
Leonard Cohen. Poems.
Contributers.