Three Moments of Love In Leonard Cohen and Bruce Cockburn

Three Moments is a series of reflections on the work of Leonard Cohen and Bruce Cockburn, two popular singer-song-writer-poets.

These two artists, so different in style and temperament, are brought together in one work in order to compare and examine the way in which they approach the question of love and desire—in their art and in their life. Three Moments looks at how masculine desire, in its search for love, expresses itself in song and poetry; at how the poetics relate to the ideal; at the obstacles faced and the struggle endured. These issues are examined from the points of view of the psychoanalytic, the symbolic and the universal.

Paul Nonnekes, Ph.D., teaches Cultural Studies at Red Deer College, Alberta.