Leonard Cohen’s Greek island bids songwriter-poet farewell

Athens (AFP) – Among the legions of fans mourning the death of  Leonard Cohen at age 82 are the residents of the small Greek island of Hydra that held a special place in the heart of the iconic musician and poet.

“This was his haunt,” Stavros Douskos, owner of the Xeri Elia tavern in the island’s port capital, said on Friday upon hearing the news of Cohen’s passing.

“We have good wine, and he loved to play his guitar here,” he told AFP.

Cohen bought a house on Hydra, a 90-minute hydrofoil ride from Athens, in the early 1960s, a time when the island was a draw for bohemian artists.

During a seven-year spell there, he wrote “Flowers for Hitler”, one of his most controversial poetry collections, his first novel “The Favorite Game”, and “Beautiful Losers”, a book about religion and sexuality that prompted comparisons to novelist James Joyce.

This is also where he met his Norwegian muse and lover Marianne Ihlen, to whom he dedicated the ballad “So Long Marianne”.

Just before Ihlen died in July, Cohen wrote to her: “I think I will follow you very soon.”

Douskos said Cohen “stopped coming to Hydra a few years ago after walking up (flights of stone steps) to the house became too taxing for him.”

“But his son Adam still visits,” he adds.

Douskos says that a poem dedicated by Cohen to his tavern still adorns the back of the menu.

“It’s a poem describing the daily life of the Hydra sailors,” said the island’s mayor Yiorgos Koukoudakis.

In the past, local authorities have worked closely with Cohen fans to host concerts and screenings honouring the artist on the island, the mayor said.

Now, the street in front of his house will be renamed in his honour, and a Leonard Cohen bench will also be installed at the harbour.

And a meeting already scheduled for June now assumes special meaning, adds the mayor.

“It will be an opportunity to do something organised in his memory,” he told AFP.