The Poems (English, Spanish and Spanish Edition) - Softcover

John Of The Cross, Saint; Campbell, Roy; Kavanagh, P. J.

4.15

693 ratings by Goodreads

9781860465895: The Poems (English, Spanish and Spanish Edition)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1860465897 ISBN 13: 9781860465895

Publisher: Harvill Pr, 2000

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Collects the mystical poems of the sixteenth-century Spanish monk in a bilingual edition, reflecting the saint's mystical experiences that led him to surrender to God's love.

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Review:

The Poems of St. John of the Cross, translated by Ken Krabbenhoft, burn with the ecstatic fury of the Psalms and sail in the radiant peace of the poet Rumi.

St. John of the Cross was born in Spain in 1542 and was imprisoned in 1577 for his devotion to the teachings of St. Teresa of Avila. During his imprisonment, he wrote most of the poems that have earned him the reputation as the greatest poet of the Christian mystical tradition. The poems, presented here in a beautifully printed, lightly illustrated Spanish/English edition, often blur the line between romantic and religious love, in the tradition of Song of Songs. "On a Dark Night," for example, begins with a lover whose gender is not identified, stealing out of a house, down a secret ladder, following "my only light and guide / the light that burned in my heart," to find "the one I knew would come, / where surely no one would find us." The poem ends with a breathtaking image of spiritual and sensual contentment: "On the ramparts / while I sat ruffling his hair / the air struck my neck / with its gentle hand, / leaving my senses suspended. / I stayed; I surrendered, / resting my face on my Beloved. / Nothing mattered. / I left my cares / forgotten among the lilies." These are poems to read aloud to a lover, poems to read silently before God, poems that quiver before the world's beauty and thankfully seek to describe something beyond it--a God whose undeniable intimacy with humanity always edges toward the ineffable. --Michael Joseph Gross

From the Back Cover:

San Juan de la Cruz, the great sixteenth-century Spanish mystic, is regarded by many as Spain's finest poet. Passionate, ecstatic, and spiritual, his poems are a blend of exquisite lyricism and profound mystical thought. In The Poems of St. John of the Cross, John Frederick Nims presents his superlative translation of the complete poems, re-creating the lyrical fervor of St. John's art.

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