Staff Pick
Like a love letter from a dear friend, this book of poems is a balm, a solace, a surprise, and an inspiration. Hafiz knew God is everywhere, and he made of himself a mirror to reflect divine light.
In just one lovely example, he wrote, "Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I would like to see you living in better conditions." Recommended By Jennifer K., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
More than any other Persian poet, it is perhaps Hafiz who accesses the mystical, healing dimensions of poetry. With this collection of 250 of Hafiz's most intimate poems, Daniel Ladinsky has succeeded in capturing the essence of one of Islam's greatest poetic and religious voices. Each line of The Gift imparts the wonderful qualities of this spiritual teacher: an audacious love that empowers lives, profound knowledge, wild generosity, and a sweet, playful genius unparalleled in world literature.
Review
"For those initiated in colder faces of worship, this Sufi's passionate freedom as God's loving partner is beyond heartwarming; reinvigorate yourself y opening any page and accepting its call." Napra Review
Review
"A worthy companion volume to Coleman Banks's new translation of Rumi. 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....A fine preface by Ladinsky and an excellent introduction by Henry S. Mindlin." Kirkus Reviews
About the Author
Daniel Ladinsky has published three previous translations of Hafiz's poems, The Gift, The Subject Tonight Is Love, and I Heard God Laughing, as well as a collection of translations of poems by twelve mystics and saints, Love Poems From God. His most recent collection is The Purity of Desire: 100 Poems of Rumi. 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.