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He writes with a simplicity that shatters your soul. We are truly lucky to be living in the same era as Cohen.

Wonderful - heard his tapes first, then was fortunate to see live performance in Wpg 94? his accompanying musicians and backup singers first class, now have cds. I recommend the movie to his fans, of various artists including Bono, paying tribute to him.

He is a worn out has-been...or rather, he was a worn out has-been 25 years ago. I live in Glace Bay, the site of one of his concerts, and I wouldn't walk the 50 feet to the nearest intersection if he was performing there for free. I am constantly amazed at people who will pay to hear a rusty nail on a chalkboard. Good luck to him, he is making more money every day on this tour than he ever made in his life.

All this is best about literature is captured in Leonard Cohen's work.

He has captured the spirit of his age, which means he belongs to us, but to the entire world as well.

His words have given me a sense of culture that I have found so often missing in Canada.

His sensuality, his intelligence, blend into his art with effortless grace.

His work inspires the best in me, and I can see, in others as well, and what more can one ask from a poet.

Canada would be a colder, darker place without his boldness and sophistication.

When will Montreal create a Poet's Corner showing respect for one of Canada's great men?

Probably not until Quebec realizes that language laws are a form of vicious racism: bit difficult for this province to honour one of its own when he doesn't write in French, so he ain't politically correct. Such a sad province that can't honour all of its citizens.

First off I'd like to say that I'm a huge fan of Leonard Cohen. He is effortlessly way too cool. Secondly I have to say I stopped listening to his music after a very sureal incident. I was taking the ferry from the mainland to Victoria on a beautiful summer evening. While in Active Pass I was at the very back of the boat catching the last remnants of a setting sun listening to Leonards greatest hits; Suzanne was playing on my Discman. All of a sudden the boat shuddered and swarms of people came running to the back of the boat pointing in the water at a young lady who'd gone overboard. Very sureal and now his music is just too haunting for me.

I once listened to Leonard's music for eight hours straight during a blizzard-filled drive through the Northern Rockies. My favourite is still Dance Me To The End Of Love. He will be playing in front of Edinburgh Castle 16 July and I can't wait. Book of Mercy came out in Canada months before it came out in the UK, so I had a friend mail me a copy so I could have it sooner. His poetry and music are both comfort and inspiration.

He means the world to me. Please - I beg - please come to San Francisco!

I want to know why Len isn't the Canadian Poet Laureate.... It's a title he's deserved for decades.

A lot!! I have been a fan for years! I can't wait to see him perform later this month!

Nothing, who is he?

Love and death, what better lyrical topics are there? Saw him on "The Future" tour and I've never seen such a wide age span in an audience before, something like 7 to 70. It's the pathos to me that sets him apart.

I'm from Europe - Cohen is HUGE there; I'm glad he's in the Hall of Fame. Canadians like to under-appreciate their own. Robert, Gerry and Joe, you are missing a lot and you don't even know it.

Life...

CANADIAN, HAY?? Montreal...poetry...lovers...McGarrigle sister...Rufus... Martha...Canadian Culture...history...TALENT...kd lang..NFB

Back in the 70's he meant a great deal to me. His music, his novels, his poetry - my boyfriend and I analysed them to death and wore our (silk-screened in high-school art class) Leonard Cohen t-shirts proudly.
Living in Tokyo in the 80's I had a homemade tape, A-side Leonard, B-side Mikami Kan (a local talent) and listening to them when feeling down would cheer me up enormously. And so on up to now - his music still means so much to me. I wish him well on his tour.

People think that just because a song is slow and sung by someone with a low voice, it must be melancholy. Many of those slow, low songs are actually uplifting or humourous or optimistic. I think he is one of the best and most unique song lyricists anywhere.

Native to a country totally undeserving of his
gifts and efforts he ranks as probably one of
the best creative writers it has ever produced.
Few of his time have had the same degree of
courage to persue love and truth along with the
universal changes in everyone's life. His finely
crafted lyrics have inspired and won the hearts
of artists all over the world. Shallow, trivial
minded and self indulgent canadians prefer drugs and shiny objects to Cohen.

Nothing,,,,,, can't believe he is R&R Hall of Fame.

Leonard Cohen takes me back almost forty years to my 'flower child' era. I would sit and repeatedly list to my vinyl recording of his songs until my mother would come in and disgustedly turn off the record player. Obviously my mother was not one of his fans!Although his voice is a bit dreary, his hypnotic rhythm, phrasing and poetry have continued to captivate me for all of these years and I believe he is an enduring Canadian treasure.

Leonard Cohen rose out of the Post-Bohemian Intellectual response to the North American cultural vacuum caused by television. His lyrics are essentially visual and along with Irving Layton, Al Purdy, Di Brandt and other gutsy Poets, put Canadian Poetry on the map. As a Canadian singer/songwriter,he is a step above what Bob Dylan is to American Music. Rap music is falling and failing all over itself trying to capture what Leonard can do in a few lines.

I've been listening to Leonard Cohen for over 35 years. I don't think a week has gone by during that time when I haven't listened to some of his music. It's been with me through some of the most important and trying times of my life. I've obviously listened to many of the songs hundreds of times; they just never go stale for me. I think Leonard Cohen is one of our most important national treasures. Long live Leonard!!!

Leonard Cohen is probably one of the most important Canadian song writers of our time. All you have to do is look at the number of performers who have covered his material in an attempt to help their own careers. Geez someone on American Idol even sang one of Leonard's best written songs - Hallelujah.

I'm 37 and fell in love with the music of Leonard Cohen at around the age of twelve, my mother had the album with the woman in fire and chains on the cover. Then I found more of his music, and I have loved it, particularly in a melancholy way, ever since. 'Suzanne' was the first I learned word for word.

To me, Leonard Cohen is an off-key, whiny
singer that suffers from permanent melancholia or depression. He is an anachronism, in that he is still living in the '60's.

Ummm....nothing?

Well, I suppose he's a great example of how someone with a limited voice can become a singer anyway and gives hope to aspiring poets that they will know something besides welfare.