Leonard Cohen's 'Book of Longing'

Leonard Cohen is a singer-songwriter, whose unpolished voice is described as "intimate." His folk music was popular in the 1960s and his songs have been recorded by many artists. Before becoming a musician, Cohen was already a novelist and poet best known for his novel "Beautiful Losers."

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and essayist William Stanley Merwin was known in the 1960s as an anti-war poet. Now an environmental activist, Merwin has published a new book of poems, The Shadow of Sirius, which addresses themes of memory and mortality.

When Emily Dickinson died in the 1880s, she was a reclusive, barely published writer. Today, she is a fully canonized, iconic poet. Former U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins says the progress of her status was unprecedented.