Kanye West Is Not Picasso

Since Kanye West has been in the news, there has been much recent tweeting and posting of Leonard Cohen’s posthumously published poem “Kanye West Is Not Picasso.” Unfortunately, nobody seems to understand what it means.

Most people take it as a “dissing” of Kanye West. And then take sides in this imagined conflict over who is the greater artist and who is the megalomaniac.

It is, instead, although not in my view a great poem, a Buddhist meditation on the self. It is a koan.

I think, for purposes of review, it is fair dealing to quote it in full; I note that others are.

It is the mystery of the self, the ego.

The ego is, at the same time, the only thing we know; and we know nothing about it.

I meant just then to say, “we all sometimes think we are Picasso, or greater than Picasso.” But then, I do not, cannot, know that.

For none of us ever knows any ego but our own.

It is of course nonsense to say “I am Picasso.” Picasso is Picasso.

At the same time, our ego contains all things; it is truer too to say “I am Picasso” than to say “Picasso is Picasso.”

And yet that “I” is nobody at all.

Anyone, including Picasso, who thinks they are Picasso is a fool.

The ego, of course, although it is nothing, is the most dangerous thing in the universe.

It seeks war against all things.