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Title: The Gift: Poems by Hafiz the Great Sufi Master by Hafiz, Daniel Ladinsky ISBN: 0-14-019581-5 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: August, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.13 (47 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: GIFT FROM THE SOUL
Comment: What a gift of love from Hafiz/Ladinsky-as-Hafiz! One poem says "Hold this book close to your heart for it contains wonderful secrets." There is no doubt that Daniel Ladinsky has "brought through" Hafiz, the great Sufi master, poet, and consummate wordsmith who lived some 700 years ago in Persia. For it takes one to know one. Not only does it take the greatest of beings -- a Hafiz -- to seek to lead in love all would-be lovers of God into themselves, therein to find rubies. It also takes a great-hearted translator and interpreter to bring an author of wonders to life for another time and a different culture.
Hafiz should speak for himself to describe this book. As therapist, he says "Love will turn the mouth of sorrow right side up." As spiritual trickster, he says "Stay near this book, it will stretch out its leg and trip you; you'll fall Into God." As cosmic courier, Hafiz is "Announcing a great bash tonight some of the planets are hosting where the lead singer is God himself." Who could turn down the invitation?
"These poems now rise in great white flocks against my mind's vast hills startled by God..." One can hear Hafiz and Kenneth Patchen singing together in some choir of poets SomeWhere. Or one can see a beatific bumper sticker: "It's no fun when God is not near." One knows, with this book, that "Hafiz will be your companion for life."
Rating: 4
Summary: Like "digging potatoes" when you're hungry.
Comment: "Hold this book close to your heart," Hafiz (1320-1389) writes, "for it contains wonderful/ Secrets" (p. 207)--secrets that "encourage our hearts to dance" (p. 1), translator Daniel Ladinsky says. This 250-poem collection can be read "as a record of a human being's journey to perfect joy, perfect knowing, and perfect love" (pp. 16-17). It also draws comparisons to one of my all-time favorite books, Coleman Barks' ESSENTIAL RUMI (1995).
I am not qualified to comment on Ladinsky's translation of Hafiz, but Ladinsky triumphs in revealing Hafiz as a poet who sees God everywhere (p. 78)--in a barking dog, "in the ring of a hammer," in a raindrop, and "in the face of everyone" (p. 223). "Wherever/ God lays His glance," Hafiz writes, "Life starts/ Clapping" (p. 85). Some of the poems here soar higher than others. Most of them offer something memorable. All of them encourage us to "Wise Up" (p. 117). "Go running through the streets/ Creating divine chaos," Hafiz writes, "Go running through this world/ Giving love, giving love" (p. 59). Through his verse, Hafiz encourages us to love more, and to be happy.
Reading this book was like "digging potatoes" when you're hungry. In one of my favorite poems in the collection, "And For No Reason," Hafiz writes "And/ For no reason/ I turn into a leaf/ That is carried so high/ I kiss the sun's mouth/ And dissolve" (p. 23). In another poem, he writes "The/ Mind is ever a tourist/ Wanting to touch and buy new things/ Then toss them into an already/ Filled closet" (p. 132). And I won't soon forget the line, "End the mental/ Lawsuits/ That clog/ The/ Brain--" (p. 111).
I understand why many other reviewers have given this book their five-star ratings, but I have given it four-stars only when measured against Coleman Barks' five-star ESSENTIAL RUMI, which I highly recommend.
G. Merritt
Rating: 1
Summary: Hold your nose here!
Comment: I have got no idea whether these translations are genuine or not. The only thing I know, for sure, is that they really stink.
Ya, for sure, after all these eons, the Sun does not say to the Earth, "You owe me." How completely stupid. Sometimes, people owe one another, and sometimes they don't. This nonsense about a speaking Sun and a listening Earth doesn't bring anything to the table!
"I saw the Earth smiling" ??
Oh, get a clue. Go buy some real poetry, not this nonsense!! "Real" poetry might be (take your pick) Li Po, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Yeats, Marlowe, Dante, Virgil, Homer, Eliot, Pound... and I'm not going to waste any more time here! Outta here!
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Title: I Heard God Laughing: Renderings of Hafiz by Hafiz, Daniel Ladinsky, Henry S. Mindlin, H. Wilberforce Clarke ISBN: 0915828189 Publisher: Sufism Reoriented Pub. Date: August, 1996 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Subject Tonight Is Love: 60 Wild and Sweet Poems of Hafiz by Hafiz, Daniel Ladinsky ISBN: 0140196234 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 28 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West by Daniel James Ladinsky ISBN: 0142196126 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: October, 2002 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks ISBN: 0062509594 Publisher: Harper SanFrancisco Pub. Date: 14 February, 1997 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Rumi: The Book of Love : Poems of Ecstasy and Longing by Coleman Barks ISBN: 0060523166 Publisher: Harper SanFrancisco Pub. Date: 07 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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