I Heard God Laughing: Poems of Hope and Joy
by Hafiz
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Book Summary Information
Author: HafizTranslator: Daniel Ladinsky
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-09-26
ISBN: 0143037811
Number of pages: 112
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Book Reviews of I Heard God Laughing: Poems of Hope and Joy
Book Review: Profoundly Accessible Love, Light and True Direction
Summary: 5 Stars
So much Beauty! Hafiz is pure joy and a perfect friend. For Hafiz, Only Love is Real.
I Heard God Laughing, in continuous print for the past eleven years, serves as a beacon of pure light, trueing our compass on our journey to God. In these brilliant, deeply tender, witty, and full hearted renderings, Ladinsky releases the true spirit of this most beloved Persian poet and spiritual teacher and makes him fully accessible to our times.
Hafiz has influenced and nourished many writers, poets and scholars through the centuries, including Nietzsche, Byron, Hugo, Lorca, Goethe and Emerson.
If you're interested in knowing more about some of these eminent poets own words about translations/renderings read on, below, following these gems....
Your Beautiful Parched Holy Mouth
A poet is someone
Who can pour Light into a cup,
Then raise it
To nourish
Your beautiful, parched, holy mouth.
an excerpt from " A Golden Compass"
Forget every idea of right and wrong
Any classroom ever taught you,
Because
An empty heart, a tormented mind,
Unkindness, jealousy and fear
Are always the testimony
You have been completely fooled!
Turn your back on those
Who would imprison your wondrous spirit
With deceit and lies.
Come, join the honest company
Of the King's beggars--
Those gamblers, scoundrels and divine clowns
And those astonishing fair courtesans
Who need Divine Love every night.
Come, join the courageous
Who have no choice
But to bet their entire world
That indeed,
Indeed, God is Real.....
Tripping Over Joy
What is the difference
Between your experience of Existence
And that of a saint?
The saint knows
That the spiritual path
Is a sublime chess game with God
And that the Beloved
Has made such a Fantastic Move
That the saint is now continually
Tripping over Joy
And bursting out in Laughter
And saying, "I surrender!"
Whereas, my dear,
I am afraid you still think
You have a thousand serious moves.
For anyone interested in the conversation that goes back and forth about the legitimacy of renderings and translations of Hafiz this may be helpful information:
Professor A.J. Arberry's scholarly work with Hafiz has, since the 1940's, been considered the gold standard of Hafiz's literal translations into the English language. In a 1948 review of Arberry's translations, Harvard Professor of Near Eastern Studies, Eric Schroeder, praises Arberry's work and agrees with him concerning the difficulty of presenting this greatest Persian poet to English speaking minds. "For Hafiz' beautiful verbal surface is too complex to retain the felicity of poetry when fully rendered into English. The acoustic structure of English equivalents, it is superfluous to say, could never echo the flawless music of the Persian words." Schroeder's review states too, "the only service of translation is to make the foreign poet a poet of one's own country."
Goethe translated Hafiz and said of him "... Hafiz has no peer!" Of the task of translating, Goethe says, "I revere the rhythm as well as the rhyme, by which poetry first becomes poetry; but that which is really, deeply, and fundamentally effective--what is really permanent and furthering--is what remains of the poet when he is translated into prose ... I therefore consider prose translations more advantageous than poetical ones... Those critical translations that vie with the original seem really to be only for the private delectation of the learned."
Emerson too rendered Hafiz, about whom he stated, "He fears nothing. He sees too far; he sees throughout; such is the only man I wish to see and be." Emerson's translations were both free renderings and translations all made from German sources, for he did not read or speak Persian with any fluency.
Contemporary poet/translator Kenneth Rexroth states, " The writer who can project himself into the exultation of another learns more than the craft of words, He learns the stuff of poetry. It is not just his prosody he keeps alert, it is his heart." One can't find a more alert and exultant heart for our modern world, than Hafiz in the pen of Ladinsky.
If you're drawn to know more, by all means read scholars' translations. If you want to dive into the complex beauty of the Persian language, go there. But if you want immediate holy refreshment, and the encouragement and joy of Hafiz's perfect heart, take _I Heard God Laughing_ home with you!
Summary of I Heard God Laughing: Poems of Hope and Joy
From the renowned translator of The Gift, a rich collection that brings the great Sufi poet to Western readers
To Persians , the poems of Hafiz are not "classical literature" from a remote past but cherished wisdom from a dear and intimate friend that continue to be quoted in daily life. With uncanny insight, Hafiz captures the many forms and stages of love. His poetry outlines the stages of the mystic's "path of love"-a journey in which love dissolves personal boundaries and limitations to join larger processes of growth and transformation.
To Persians , the poems of Hafiz are not "classical literature" from a remote past but cherished wisdom from a dear and intimate friend that continue to be quoted in daily life. With uncanny insight, Hafiz captures the many forms and stages of love. His poetry outlines the stages of the mystic's "path of love"-a journey in which love dissolves personal boundaries and limitations to join larger processes of growth and transformation.
With this stunning collection, Ladinsky has succeeded brilliantly in translating the essence of one of Islam's greatest poetic and spiritual voices. BACKCOVER: "If you haven't yet had the delight of dining with Daniel Ladinsky's sweet, playful renderings of the musings of the great saints, I Heard God Laughing is a perfect appetizer. . . . This newly released edition of his first playful foray into Hafiz's divinely inspired poetry is essential reading . . . . Ladinsky is a master who will be remembered for finally bringing Hafiz alive in the West."
-Alexandra Marks, The Christian Science Monitor
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