Description
“There are universes inside Hafiz, a lineage of masters. Daniel Ladinsky follows the playfulness; the rascal moves well.” — Coleman Barks “With this stunning collection of Hafiz’s most intimate poems, Ladinsky has succeeded brilliantly in presenting the essence of one of Islam’s greatest poetic and religious voices. Each line of 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.” —RamDass.org Hafiz, a secret Sufi, came to prominence in his day as a writer of love poems. That love transformed into an all-consuming passion for union with the divine. In The Gift , Daniel Ladinsky bestows on us the impassioned yet whimsical strains of Hafiz's ecstasy. Never forced or awkward, Ladinsky's Hafiz whispers in your ear and pounds in your chest, naming God in a hundred metaphors. I once asked a bird, "How is it that you fly in this gravity Of darkness?" She responded, "Love lifts Me." Like Fitzgerald's version of Khayyam's Rubaiyat , the language of The Gift strikes a contemporary chord, resonating in the reader's mind and then in the heart. Ladinsky's language is plain, fresh, playful--dancing with an expert cadence that invites and surprises. If it is true, as Hafiz says, that a poet is someone who can pour light into a cup, reading Ladinsky's Hafiz is like gulping down the sun. --Brian Bruya --This text refers to the paperback edition. From Booklist 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 --This text refers to the paperback edition. 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.xa0He lives in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. --This text refers to the paperback edition. From Kirkus 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. --This text refers to the paperback edition. Read more
Features & Highlights
- Chosen by author Elizabeth Gilbert as one of her ten favorite books, Daniel Ladinsky’s extraordinary renderings of 250 unforgettable lyrical poems by Hafiz, one of the greatest Sufi poets of all time
- More than any other Persian poet
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- even Rumi
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- 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.” Indeed, Daniel Ladinsky has said that his work with Hafiz is an attempt to do the impossible: to render Light into words
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- to make the Luminous Resonance of God tangible to our finite senses.
- I ama hole in a flutethat the Christ's breath movesthrough
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- listen to thismusic!
- With this stunning collection of Hafiz’s most intimate poems, Ladinsky has succeeded brilliantly in presenting the essence of one of Islam’s greatest poetic and religious voices. Each line of
- 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.
