This book contains poems Peter Lindfors gave to his friend and mentor Leonard Cohen. Gina Waggott has written the preface and Jonas Ellerström a short biography. Andreas Björsten contributes postscript poems as a tribute to the poet. All three of them were also Lindforss’ friends.
I Didn’t Use to Like People
I didn’t use to like people
To this day
I’m not sure that I do
But I go out and talk to them
and I come home feeling better
Maybe, just maybe
they aren’t just assholes
and I hope this poem
is not just a load of crap
Jonas Ellerström gives the reader a brief but insightful biography of Lindforss’ life and work – as a friend and as a publisher. Peter Lindforss was born in Stockholm on January 19, 1953. Lindforss’ parents were upper middle class, and he grew up in a very bourgeois part of central Stockholm. He went to a private school and after graduating trained to be a journalist in Gothenburg.
Peter Lindforss´ book debut was in 1976 with a collection of poems called Vykort från sjuttiotalet, in translation ”Postcards from the Seventies”. Until 1984, he published four more collections of poetry. He moved from almost private publication to being accepted by a major publisher, but never made a breakthrough. It seemed he then fell silent, but instead he turned to translation, and writing scripts and song lyrics for TV and stage shows.
Lindforss spent time in Paris and in New York. In 1981 he meet Leonard Cohen on the Greek island of Hydra and it was the start of an unusually intimate and long-lasting friendship. Cohen became Peter’s mentor. ”He knew certain things that hadn’t occurred to me”, said Peter. He would even refer to him as his Master (in a Zen sense), but most importantly Cohen was a person in whom Peter felt great confidence.
He worked as a translator for several years. Many detective stories but also Raymond Chandler’s Marlowe’s Theme — Fifty Letters for Eric Fylkeson’s Janus publishing in 1984 as well as Leonard Cohen’s Book of Mercy into Swedish in 1987.
FP–237 • ISBN: 9789189762312
Gina Waggott says in the book’s preface that Cohen described Peter Lindforss as ”He’s a genius… and quirky.” In 2007 Peter and Gina struck up a strange friendship via email, after she asked him for a copy of The Man Who Destroyed My Life, Peter’s Swedish book on Cohen. They started sharing music, poems, photos and silly memes. Later, they also met in Stockholm. She was 27 and Peter was 55. ”I’ve always wanted a little sister”, he said. ”Looks like I’ve finally got one.” Read Gina Waggott’s personal preface where she describes, among other things, how she and the Cohen tried to maintain contact with Peter Lindforss.
Peter Lindforss and Leonard Cohen backstage at the Globen venue, Stockholm, October 15, 2008
In 2007, Lindfors’ book The Man Who Ruined My Life was published by ellerströms Publishing. It is about his long friendship with Leonard Cohen. Andreas Björsten, friend of Peter’s and one of the few people in Sweden who believed in him as a poet, tried to get him some recognition by editing and publishing a collection called Det finns mer (There Is More) in 2014. But by then, Lindforss had already left his apartment and was living homeless on the streets of Stockholm.
Peter Lindforss withdrew from society and lived as a homeless man. He finally died of acute alcohol poisoning on July 26, 2015. A couple of obituaries appeared and then it seemed as if everyone had forgotten the poet Peter Lindforss.
In 2023, Andreas Björsten and Jonas Ellerström compiled a volume of poems in Swedish. Some had been published in the magazine Den Blinde Argus, others were from an unpublished book manuscript, and a substantial section were poems that Peter Lindforss sent to his friends before he was evicted from his apartment, and finally poems he sent to friends as text messages during his last years. Fri Press published this book under the title De långa resorna är över, and it has met with great acclaim. At least posthumously, Peter Lindforss has achieved recognition as a poet.
