Much of Leonard Cohen’s work (and most of his life) has been characterized by a vacillation between two poles. Cohen has always embraced the dynamic tension between the opposing forces of the holy and the profane, the spiritual and the physical, the attaining of enlightenment through sexuality and decadence or through spiritual practice.

Nowhere is this more clear than in Book of Longing, Cohen’s first collection of new poetry in more than two decades. It includes recent poetry and previously unpublished works alongside a series of drawings, largely portraits and self-portraits. The poetry and the sketches combine to create a stark, unflinching study of the poet late in life, still lacking answers to the fundamental questions that have dogged him for decades, still finding small joy and love among the ruins. The book is never maudlin, never sentimental; instead, it is a compelling, revelatory window into the writer’s psyche, mediated by his powerful use of the language.

Stylistically, the poems in Book of Longing are largely undistinguished, and fall generally into three types: prose poems, ballad-based lyric poems (in which one can practically hear the musical backing and Cohen’s voice), and aphoristic, sharp-edged miniatures. The styles are unified, however, by the poetic voice and the directness of the content. Nothing is veiled in Book of Longing; there are few obscure allusions, few references external to the poet’s experience. The plainspoken quality of the poems, coupled with their emotional frankness, lends the volume an often uncomfortable immediacy and intimacy.

This intimacy presents something of a conundrum: as a rule, poetry too directly rooted in the poet’s autobiography, or requiring an extensive knowledge of events in the poet’s life, tends to succeed only for the poet. The poems of Book of Longing work not only despite the limitations of their autobiographical nature, but because of them. Cohen has lived his life largely in the public eye, from his early career as a poet to his later celebrity as a singer and songwriter, from the women he has been involved with to his seclusion in a Zen monastery near Los Angeles. Seeing the events of Cohen’s life in the poems creates a hall of mirrors effect for the reader – the understanding of the life increases the appreciation of the work, which in turn increases the understanding of the life. It’s a delicate line, and one which few poets other than Cohen would dare attempt, let alone succeed at so handily.

The poems of Book of Longing are so of a piece that it is difficult to select highlights. Among the volume’s stronger poems are “Much Later,” a 1978 poem rooted in Cohen’s life in Greece, his involvement with the much sung-about Marianne, and an old Ray Charles album. “Titles” is an exploration of identity through the various mantles Cohen has worn, beginning with the lines “I had the title Poet/ and maybe I was one/ for a while.” The poem “I Miss My Mother” is, as the title suggests, a melancholy lament for the poet’s lost mother, while “Because of a Few Songs” winks at his history as a ladies’ man: “Because of a few songs/ wherein I spoke of their mystery,/ women have been/ exceptionally kind/ to my old age” he begins.

Interestingly, Cohen shifts away from the autobiographical for the final poem of the book, closing with the apocalyptic vision of “The Flood.” Dated 1973, it is one of the oldest poems in the book, and serves to cement the singularity of his vision with its closing lines: “The body will drown/ And the soul will break loose/ I write all this down/ But I don’t have the proof.” It’s an appropriate note to leave on – in the thickets of his constant questioning, the tension of his internal conflict, there is nothing for Cohen to do but continue to write.