I Heard God Laughing: Poems of Hope and Joy [Paperback]

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!

I Heard God Laughing, a wonderful book, who could imagine Hafiz from the l4th century would touch us all. The poems can be read over and over and I find I fall deeper and deeper into them, their beauty and love come through in Landinsky's translations. I highly recommend the books, also recommend " The Subject Tonight is Love", and "Love Poems from God" all by Landinsky. I can't say enough about the beauty of his translations, a masterful job he has done.

For anyone wanting to go deeper into relationship with yourself, a partner, etc, turn off the tv, and open one of Landinsky's books and read to your Beloved........it's very sweet, and afterall, isn't that why we are here, to be in relationship and dialogue with each other.

I've read other translators of Hafiz, Rumi, etc. and while I do not speak the original language, I cannot imagine a more truthful and present-time translation of Hafiz totally in keeping with the spirit of his words. I am a poet myself and the good ones make meanings that transcend their own words. Ladinsky taps into Hafiz's meanings and the joy that bubbles up from it is contagious. Every single poem makes Hafiz's spirit come alive garbed in bright shiny eyes and compassionate heart -- looking right at you. It is said that in Arab countries the average person on the street can and will quote Hafiz by heart. You need crucial images to do that. A humdrum or more accurate interpretation in English will not stick to the ears nor the heart. How's this for memorable lines:

"You better start kissing me -- or else!"

"You don't have to act crazy anymore --
We all know you were good at that."

"The stars get clearly drunk
And crazy at night
And throw themselves
Across the sky."

"I know the way you can get
When you have not had a drink of Love."

"Do you know how beautiful you are?
I think not, my dear.
Yet Hafiz could set you upon a Stage
And worship you forever!"

"I have a thousand brilliant lies
For the question, How are you?"

And finally,
"A poet is someone
Who can pour Light into a spoon,
Then raise it to nourish
Your beautiful parched, holy mouth."

If God is the Light and Hafiz is the spoon, then Daniel Ladinsky is the one holding you upright to receive the gift.