Synopsis
Daniel Ladinsky’s 250 unforgettable lyrical poems are inspired by the cherished verse of Hafiz, one of the greatest Sufi poets of all time.
More than any other Persian poet, Hafiz expanded the mystical, healing dimensions of poetry. Because his poems were often ecstatic love songs from God to his beloved world, many have called Hafiz the “Invisible Tongue.”
Daniel Ladinsky’s poems are not translations in a literal sense. Rather than capture the form of a particular classical work, Ladinsky crafts poems that release the spirit of Hafiz based on his study of stories and poems attributed to the revered Persian writer. The Gift imparts the wonderful qualities of this master Sufi poet and spiritual teacher: encouragement, an audacious love that touches lives, profound knowledge, generosity, and a sweet, playful genius unparalleled in world literature.
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About the Author
Daniel Ladinsky is an acclaimed poet and renderer of mystical poetry. His books include The Gift, The Subject Tonight Is Love, I Heard God Laughing, A Year with Hafiz, Love Poems from God, The Purity of Desire, and Darling, I Love You. For six years, he made his home in a spiritual community in western India, where he worked and lived with the intimate disciples and family of Avatar Meher Baba. He lives in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
Reviews
The Gift ($13.95 paperback original; Aug.; 326 pp.; 0-14-019581-5): A worthy companion volume to Coleman Bankss new translation of Rumi (The Glance, see below). It collects 250 poems written by Muhammad Hafiz (132089), the most popular and highly revered poet in Persian history, and renders them into a fresh translation from the Farsi. Like Rumi, Hafiz writes out of the Sufi tradition, and his work bears the Sufi hallmarks of ecstatic spirituality conveyed at once through lush imagery and verbal restraint. His fabulistic, almost didactic style can sound a bit flat at times (How / Do I / Listen to others? / As if everyone were my Master / Speaking to me / His / Last / Words), but there is a religious intensity in his work that is equally fresh and naive (When no one is looking and I want / To kiss / God / I just lift my own hand / To / My / Mouth) and quite unlike anything found in the Western tradition (though modern minimalists such as Robert Lax come close). A fine preface by Ladinsky and an excellent introduction by Henry S. Mindlin. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Less well known in the U.S. than his Sufi predecessor, Rumi, Hafiz (Shams-ud-din Muhammad) is also worthy of attention, and Ladinsky's free translations should help see that he gets it. Hafiz is so beloved in Iran that he outsells the Koran. Many know his verses by heart and recite them with gusto. And gusto is appropriate to this passionate, earthy poet who melds mind, spirit, and body in each of his usually brief pensees. Ladinsky has deliberately chosen a loose and colloquial tone for this collection, which might grate on the nerves of purists but makes Hafiz come vividly alive for the average reader. "You carry / All the ingredients / To turn your life into a nightmare--/ Don't mix them!" he advises, and "Bottom line: / Do not stop playing / These beautiful / Love / Games." Nothing is too human for Hafiz to celebrate, for in humanity he finds the prospect of God. In everything from housework to lovemaking, he celebrates the spiritual possibilities of life. A fine and stirring new presentation of one of the world's great poets. Patricia Monaghan
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