Questions on Cohen's, "Story"

Debate on Leonard Cohen's poetry (and novels), both published and unpublished. Song lyrics may also be discussed here.
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jacob96
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Joined: Wed May 18, 2022 7:38 pm

Questions on Cohen's, "Story"

Post by jacob96 »

Dear Leonard Cohen enthusiasts,

I recently started a first year university poetry course. Although I am really enjoying my exploration into poetry, I am also finding it, at times, daunting. I am currently tasked to interpret the style of several poems by four poets, and make notes on what I believe to be the four or five most important stylistic features. Upon reading Cohen's poem "Story", I am struggling to find the meaning created through juxtaposition and tension which Cohen (I believe based on the autobiography in my anthology of poems for my course) utilizes to bring life to his verse or rather get something that corresponds to "an interior condition". I would really appreciate any background or interpretation throughout this particular poem (why he uses imagery or the symbol or an orange, do the stones represent clocks? what is there meaning, is there reasoning for the capital S in spring, or was that typical in that era), and any advice one might have for approaching future poems of Cohens'. Thank you so much to all for your time, and I am so sorry for how unclear my thoughts may be described.

Upon typing the poem I became even more aware of Cohen's frequent use of the self, "I", also its contrast with the subjects "she". Could this possibly be to contribute to the tension formed through differences? Is this woman potentially going senile after the child's death, which is possibly contrasted further by the mindful and understanding narrator?

THANKS AGAIN!! :)

Story: By Leonard Cohen

She tells me a child built her house
one Spring afternoon,
but that the child was killed
crossing the street.

She says she read it in the newspaper
that at the corner of this and that avenue
a child was run down by an automobile

Of course I do not believe her
She has built that the house herself,
hung the oranges and coloured beads in the doorways,
crayoned flowers on the walls.

She has made the paper things for the wind,
collected crooked stones for their shadows in the sun,
fastened yellow and dark balloons to the ceiling

Each time I visit her
she repeats the story of the child to me,
I never question her. It is important
to understand one's part in a legend.

I take my place
among the paper fish and make-believe clocks,
naming the flowers she has drawn,
smiling while she paints my head on large clay coins,
and making a sort of courtly love to her
when she contemplates her own traffic death.

Cohen, Leonard. “STORY”, Twentieth-Century Poetry & Poetics, 5th ed., edited by Gary Geddes, Oxford University Press, 2006, pp. 458
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