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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
...(more) 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(less)
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The Gift is one of my bibles. Ladinsky's translations of Hafiz are living and vital. The poems have the ability to open my heart, make me laugh and bring me to tears. They are also full of insightful spiritual wisdom…. I definitly recomend this book for any spiritual seeker….. “No one In Need of Love Can sit with my verse for an hour and then walk away without carrying golden tools, and feeling that God just came near”