Cohen honour recalls poetry jam
Much of the world knows where Canadian poet and singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen was last week. The Montreal-born star was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in New York on Monday and announced his first tour in his 15 years.
Renowned for his poetry and novels since the 1950s, Cohen has produced classic songs such as So Long, Marianne and Everybody Knows and famous novels, poetry and albums.
Perhaps only London's greatest poet -- my mother, Colleen Thibaudeau -- recalls where Cohen was early in the evening of Oct. 26, 1964. He was warily circling the dinner table at 276 Huron St. as he and other stellar Canadian poets -- Phyllis (Bloom) Gotlieb and the late Earle Birney -- visited my parents before reading at UWO's old Convocation Hall.
"That's why I was thinking about the critter. He's on the radio every minute," mom says of Cohen's recent, richly deserved return to prominence.
"I'll never forget him walking around the table and saying, 'I can't eat that, I can't eat that,' " mom recalls the young bard as saying. "Poor Leonard Cohen, he had a tippy tummy."
My father -- James Crerar (Jamie) Reaney, London's second greatest poet -- had called earlier in the day. Dad's news was that it was not only the four touring poets -- family friend Gotlieb, Birney, Cohen and the late Irving Layton -- who would be dining at Huron Street. An entourage, including "11 techies," who might have been working on an NFB film on Cohen, was also arriving. Mom moved quickly. "I ran down to Gates (an old Broughdale grocery store) and augmented my supplies because I didn't know about the techies," she says.
As it turned out, Montreal's Layton, who had old friends in London, visited elsewhere.
"Your father thoroughly enjoyed it and also your grandfather. Grampa Reaney was in seventh heaven. He thought he was going to be in a movie," mom says. I can't remember any of it.
The fab four's tour of Canadian campuses had them rushing in from Waterloo that day. Mom thinks it was the brainchild of the late Jack McClelland, an innovative Canadian publisher. He began working for his father's company, McClelland & Stewart, in 1946. McClelland became its president in 1961 and soon began to turn Canadian writers into stars. "Jack was great for fun and games," mom says.
All four poets had M&S material in the mill. Birney had Near False Creek Mouth. Cohen had Flowers for Hitler. Layton's book was The Laughing Rooster and Gotlieb's was Within the Zodiac. "I didn't know who Leonard was . . . Earle I knew mostly by letter . . . we had had a lively exchange of letters over the non-arrival of Turvey . . . he was so mad because of the ("four-foot" editions for advertising) Turveys not coming. They had been lost in the stock room," mom says. She had toiled for M&S in the 1940s and so took those huge advertising copies of Birney's 1949 award-winning novel Turvey to the Malton airport. It calmed Birney.
Gotlieb and mom had been friends since their days together at the University of Toronto, earlier in the 1940s. They have stayed in close touch and Gotlieb autographed MindWorlds, one of her marvellous science-fiction works, for my parents.
"Phyllis, of course," mom says when asked to choose her favourite writer of the four. (I would agree). "I wouldn't dare rate the others. Their ghosts would rise up and that Cohen is still raging about," she says.
To judge by The Free Press photos of the reading, it was a hit. Last week, I urged fans who had been at the London Arena concerts mentioned in the column to share their memories. So many have shared so much, it makes me want to try again. If you were at that 1964 poetry jam, I would love to hear your memories.
Mom's memories made a big impression on at least one Londoner. Years later, a carpenter was fixing my parents' front porch steps. He heard mom's tale of Cohen and company's visit.
With deep reverence, the carpenter took some of the old steps away. They became part of a shrine to Cohen long before he became a 2008 rock Hall of Famer. Why? Because Leonard Cohen had once walked up and down those wooden stairs.
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