Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West (Compass)

Ladinsky reinvents poems, songs, and even prose passages from twelve renowned saints, imposing modern idioms on the original material. This sounds sacrilegious, yet surprisingly it actually works. The saints' words come back to life, perhaps not always in forms the original author would recognize, but in ways that speak eloquently to today's reader.

A very inspirinng book offering insights into spiritual masters from several "religions". The book is well organized and provides many beautiful enlightening poems and a good breif history of twelve very special saints or prophets. Highly recommend this book!

Divine honey for the soul. These poets are not just talking about God but are sharing their direct experience with the infinite. Very moving and personal. If you want to soar in divine bliss this book is one lovely path. Enjoy.

This collection of poems covers a wide breadth of poets/writers and spiritual traditions. Regardless of your personal tradition or perpsective there is a wealth of inspiration here. A must have for speakers, ministers, pastors.

The Sufi poets have gifted the reader with messages that speak to the depths of one's heart and soul. At times when words fail to express feelings and or prayers, these poets have spoken for us. This is a book that you can pick up at any time no matter if you have five minutes or an hour. It is also a great resource for presenters at meetings or leaders of prayer.

the store served me well. I made the purchase without leaving my desk, and it came withing the week.

I am impressed witht he writings, the heart of these folks who lived in the Piscean Age... they left markers, words crafted that gets to the heart of life. Highly inspirational, I highly recommend this book.

This is so gorgeous and unusual it brings one right into the mystery. I love it and for a while I took it everywhere with me. Also I was introduced to some new poets I had not read, and to some poetry by some of my favorites that I had not come across either. I would read anything from Daniel Landinsky now.

I have found this book to be very informative about different mystics of different traditions. The short histories are enlightening about the person and the writings have all been good starters for reflection. It is amazing how some very ancient short poems or reflections are so relevant to the world and life today in some cases over one thousand years later.

The people behind the 12 sacred voices featured in this book had a deep love for God and an amazing sense of humor! These poems reflect their understanding of God's profound love for humanity and the absurdities of life that keep us from experiencing that love.

I cannot write enough good things about this book. It introduced me to spiritual mystics from many religious traditions who wrote of the constant and unfaltering love of God. This book is truly inspiring and has pulled me through some dark times. A must!

One of the most beautiful books on the planet. Every page is spiritually nourishing. If you like the words and messages of the mystics, you'll love this. I have given this book as a gift to many people. Every time I open to almost any page I feel like pure oxygen is going into my soul. I will never be tired of this book.

This book is a wonderful resource bacause it give a background for each of the authors so that her/his works are more understandable. I love this book because the poetry is so beautiful and it gives me insights that onlyu poetry can provide.

I keep reading and re-reading this book. Sometimes when I'm stressed, I'll pick it up and read one poem and feel a breath of fresh air in my heart. :) It's helped me get through many a stressful day!

Ladinsky's choice of poets for this volume is inspired. All twelve write with clarity of image and meaning that works across time and religious divides. All speak at some time from a experiential place of ecstatic love. So why do I give only one star? Read translations then compare to these adaptations. What Ladinsky gives us is one voice - his. The differences in place and time and religion of the originals have been flattened into an English-speaking present. The stark clarity of image in the originals have been muddled into blurred images of modern interpretation.
While it is true that the ecstatic experience of love is common across culturals, the language in which the experience is described is always the unique voice of a particular individual's experience of the divine. It is that particularity that was lost in these adaptations.
Rather than this volume, seek out translations of the originals.

Always love to hear great wisdom from different perceptions & heritages...Especially when they arrive with great humor & lightness of heart. While the messages in the poems arrive with some direct, staunch, & pointed expression, there is a distinct sense that even the ascended ones took themselves with levity & humility, ready for more evolution at any time. This can be a great book to spring on a dinner gathering for a switch of frequencies if things get a bit stuck or resistant. When Angel clients have felt blocked, I have them intuitively pick a page number -- even if I'm on the phone with them. Life is often just a giggling dream, eh? At least that is what this book & its sacred voices may be suggesting! Enjoy!

This compilation is one of my all time favorite books- I think it's in a tie with the Bhagavad Gita and Rupert Spira's "Presence." I'm interested in the clear and direct communication of life's great celebration. Thank you to the author for this incredible gift of a book. One of the great expressions of love, beauty, and grace that you will read in your life.

While its obvious that Daniel Ladinsky took many liberties in translating the mystical poems of such great masters as Hafiz and Rumi (at one point I believe he even inserts a quip into one poet's mouth about how the world has gone mad and suddenly everyone is voting Republican), I believe that he has gone straight to the heart of what each poet meant to convey to the audiences of their own time and place. Ladinksy has not done a scholarly translation but he has revitalized the poems to speak to real people living in the real world right now. I liked this book and what it helped to evince in my spiritual walk so much that I bought an additional copy for a young lady in my life who was going through a crisis of faith (couldn't just pass on my copy because by that time I had littered it with my own notes and cross references to other passages in other books). Its important to know that God is all around us, and even in suffering there is a sweet beauty we can't deny, and that is definitely the central message of this poetry. I enjoyed seeing the harmony of ideas between Christian and Muslim mystics, and I especially enjoyed the renderings of St. John of the Cross. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to be in love.

This is the most spiritually uplifting and joyous collection of poems I have ever read.

In response to the people who criticise Ladinsky for not producing true translations of the originals, I'd like to suggest that he's actually produced more faithful translations than other more academically inclined translators of these poets by focusing on retaining the intent and emotional integrity of the originals rather than just their words and structures.

One of the big difficulties in translation is that the same things and concepts can have entirely different connotations for readers in different cultural, linguistic and temporal settings. In poetry, more than any other form of writing, meaning and emotional content often hinge on these connotations. Therefore, retaining references to the same things and concepts in translation might produce a poem that's 'academically' correct but entirely unlike the original in terms of the way it's received by its new audience.

In the case of Hafiz, for example, the way 14th-century Persians interpreted the things that made up their world must have been radically different from how we as 21st-century Westerners would interpret these same things -- we're talking a divide of centuries, different cultures, different climates, different geographies, different religions, different ways of thinking, etc. etc.

If Ladinsky was focused on retaining the intent and emotional integrity of the originals, therefore, he no doubt would have had to replace many of the original concepts and images with ones that are meaningful to 21st-century Westerners. The idea of a fish needing professional help, therefore, isn't at all out of place in the translation if it is in the same spirit and has the same connotations as the original.

While Ladinsky's approach to translation might not be approved of in academic circles, to my mind it is the only way to retain the integrity of the originals. It has also made these poems, and their messages of divine joy, accessible to a much larger Western audience.

I read Mr. Legge's review below before purchasing this, but decided he was probably just a Christian offended at Ladinsky taking liberties with some of the great poets/writers from this tradition. Unfortunately, I wish I would have listened to him.
I have trouble believing that these poems, or even something similar, were written by the sources credited. They all come off sounding a bit like Hafiz, (or at least, as I'm beginning to suspect, Daniel Ladinsky's version of Hafiz), but not nearly as good as the Hafiz translations in Ladinsky's other volumes.
Something about the "translations" just seemed a little smart-alecky to me and not very deep. I don't think for instance, that Kabir really said "a fish in the water that's thirsty needs professional help." Buy at your own risk.

My acting coach let me borrow this little gem.

Had I known my own heart would be this receptive to the enhancement of Gods grace on ones life I don't think I could have handled it.

Today I finished the book, crying at some poems, laughing at the irony of others. Even in my darkest hours his love clothes me.

It is with a great sadness that I must relinquish this book back to its owner, until we meet again.

I will say, above all this book has inspired in me a fire to write and express the love that I feel with my creator and the grace he extends to me by allowing me to co-create with him.

An intuition of the Divine that continues to give me comfort and open my eyes says that God is a sphere whose circumference is nowhere, but whose center is everywhere. It is an intuition that Ladinsky knows in his bones, as this work so clearly shows. The offerings in Love Poems from God fill that nowhere with true song, and make that everywhere available to readers in a voice that fills the soul's yearning with comfort, awe and delight. These poems return to readers a sensibility of such extraordinary depth that-against all odds in this troubling world-we begin to believe what the great mystics have taught again and again: that the essence of our life is both deeply human and truly Divine. Our lives, then, are a dance set to the very music that whirls throughout these marvelous poems, as, once again, Ladinsky "strikes up the band" of mystical truth and delight.
I keep this book of poems close to me, I hold it like I hold a loving Friend.

This book is seriously misleading. Ladinsky claims to "edit" this volume of poems of Eastern and Christian mystics, but at least with respect to the Christian sources, he has not edited them in any meaningful sense - he has fabricated entirely new poems from whole cloth. They certainly were NOT written by the people to whom he attributes them. At most, they are Ladinsky's own (erroneous) impressions of these great Christian mystics.
Each of these men and women actually did write their own poems, but you won't find them in this book. Look instead at, for example, "The Aquinas Prayer Book: The Prayers and Hymns of St. Thomas Aquinas", edited by Robert Anderson, "The Prayers of Catherine of Siena" edited by Suzanne Noffke, or "The Ascent of Mount Carmel" by St. John of the Cross, edited by Henry L. Carrigan.
The real poems by these authors are well worth many hours of meditation, but Ladinsky's "edited" versions only give you what Ladinsky himself thinks.

The subtitle for this book is "Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West" but a truthful subtitle would be "One New Age Guy Passing off His Poems as though Written by Ancient Mystics."

I eagerly bought the book, desiring to hear the voices of these twelve mystics. It quickly became clear that this book was full of falsehood. You will learn nothing about Sufi, Hindu or Catholic mystic poets. Landinsky, the author of the book, DID NOT EVEN TRANSLATE THESE POEMS. He took previous English translations, and very loosely PARAPHRASED them, changing they freely, as he admits in the preface, to suit what he thinks the poets would believe if they were alive today.

Consequently, all the poems sound the same, no matter which mystic was supposed to have written them. And Landinsky has them all teaching the same lessons: 1. You are God, 2. All Religions are One, 3. Orthodox religions of any kind are bad, and 4. Don't forget to have sex often.

If you don't know much about religion, or your taste in poetry is for the Hallmark, then these sappy little constructs might be as pleasing as a dish of artificial vanilla ice cream. But if you want historical authenticity, or truthful translations, or even artfulness in poetry, then you will be gravely disappointed. I own thousands of books, and this is the first one ever I am going to throw out. Penguin, the publisher of this preachy thing, cannot escape the fraudulence of their act. They owe me $16, and an apology.

This book is a marvelous collection of the poetry of twelve of the world's great saints and mystics. This is divinely inspired poetry at its best.
Here is a little gem from the great poet Jalaludin Rumi.
RUMI, PAY HOMAGE

If God said,
"Rumi, pay homage to everything
that has helped you
enter my
arms."

there would not be one experience of my life,
not one thought, not one feeling,
not one act, I
would not
bow
to.

The poet is saying that everything that happens to us is meant to bring us closer to God. We should give thanks for everything that God sends.
These positive and life-affirming poems are so welcome in today's chaotic world. Check this book out. You won't be disappointed.

these poems and translations are lovely; however some of the facts about the poets are historically inaccurate. for example, the female poetess Rabia of Basra was never employed as a brothel worker --- this is a gross misrepresentation of her life.

i feel it is important to keep in mind that some of mr. ladinsky's translations are also not accurate.

even so, this is a relatively enjoyable read.

The book has poems of some great sufis translated into simple english. This makes it easy to understand and appreciate them. It also has summarized introductions to all the saints whose works are translated. Some poems even made me laugh and see God as a light tempered being who smiles at us sometimes also :o).

Now this is one delightful book! My husband and I enjoy reading a poem or two just before going to sleep.
I appreciate the directness of the talks with God, as portrayed in Ladinsky's translations. I think these days, when so many people doubt God's intimacy with us, the idea of a direct line with Him is refreshing and opens a door for us to step into.
Two of my favorite poems are "It works" by Rabia, and "Hey" by Rumi. My husband's favorite is "He asked for charity" by St. Francis of Assisi.
Thank you, Dan, and we are curious to see what you'll do next..

According to that very fine magazine "Spirituality & Health" this is one of the best books of 2002. I would not argue that point. There is a marvelous, wild (even outrageous) range of verse in this anthology. I think these renderings are unique, and there is a very genuine, touching, sincere quality about these poems. Though I can also understand why a few scholars might want to hang this guy, Ladinsky; bet though God digs him. And if God ever did sing a few lines of praise on our behalf I don't think God would have to work too hard, He could just use some this stunningly beautiful poetry.

The poems reflect a deep intimacy with the Divine, & the Divine's unconditional, wild, passionate love for us. The many & varied faiths & Masters represented in this book are a delightful experience of the universality of the Divine's relationship with us. It never fails that if I ask prayerfully for a poem to fit whatever state I'm in at the time & open this book randomly, the message given is always full & fruitful.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who desires a closer walk in the spiritual life.

Yet again, a book by Daniel Ladinsky rides on the coat-tails of other, much more gifted writers. Ladinsky doesn't translate these poets, or even provide new renderings based on previous translations - as he himself admits, he writes poems which he believes to have been divinely revealed to him by various famous writers and poets from previous centures, revelations which bear no relationship to anything these writers produced while actually alive. Funny how they all come out sounding like a twentieth century American.

very well translated; understandable expressions of ancient mystics' religious experiences; some passages quite sensual; mini-bios help with understanding of authors; profound, ecstatic experiences expressed beautifully; I read this when I want to be inspired to continue on the path.