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Leonard Cohen wrote a poem criticising Kanye West before he died

The poem is titled 'Kanye West Is Not Picasso'

Chelsea Ritschel
in New York
Friday 12 October 2018 06:45 BST
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Leonard Cohen wrote a poem about Kanye West (Getty)
Leonard Cohen wrote a poem about Kanye West (Getty)

Late poet and singer Leonard Cohen wrote a bizarre poem about Kanye West, that has only just been published in a new posthumous collection of his poetry.

In 2015, a year before his death, Cohen composed the poem “Kanye West Is Not Picasso,” in which he wrote that he is the “real Kanye West.”

“I am the Kanye West of Kanye West/The Kanye West of the great bogus shift of bulls**t culture,” the poem reads.

Another line says: “I am the Kanye West Kanye West thinks he is.”

The full poem was shared to Twitter by Amanda Shires, where it’s received more than 3,000 likes.

“I really love that Cohen’s dissing him from beyond the grave,” one person wrote.

According to the foreword for The Flame, penned by Cohen's son Adam, it "contains my father's final efforts as a poet. It was what he was staying alive to do, his sole breathing purpose at the end."

Prior to writing the poem, which is dated March 15, Cohen spoke admirably about the rapper in a 2014 interview with the Wall Street Journal, in which he described his “energy, resonance of truth, of person, of real experience.”

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The appearance of the poem on Twitter coincided with Mr West's visit to the White House on Thursday, where he met with Donald Trump to have a wide-ranging discussion covering everything from prison reform and mental health to the North Korean nuclear crisis.

You can purchase The Flame here.

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