You Do Not Have To Love Me.

COHEN, Leonard; Painting by Soheyl Dahi.

$3,500.00

Item Number: 147664

San Francisco: Sore Dove Press, 2008.

Signed limited issue, “Publisher’s copy no. 3”, from 26 copies signed by Cohen with an original painting by Soheyl Dahi, Cohen’s close friend and the founder of the Sore Dove Press. The object of the poem was the singer-songwriter Nico, who was “idealized by Cohen and made a subject of his worship” (Mesac, p. 91). You Do Not Have To Love Me first appeared in Selected Poems 1956-1968 (1968), alongside a number of other poems that reference Nico. To Cohen, who was still early in his music career, “Nico represented all the women he had ever wanted and the more she rejected him, the more the poet suffered for the image of the Virgin” (ibid., p. 92). Leonard Cohen, the Modern Troubadour, 2020. Octavo, original black stiff card covers, author’s name in silver on front panel, with 1 sheet letterpress poem and original painting by Soheyl Dahi tipped in with tissue guard. In fine condition. Rare and desirable.