Customer Reviews

The Soul is Here for Its Own Joy: Sacred Poems from Many Cultures

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Robert Bly has a wonderful knack for finding the best of the most approachable, readable poetry available. If you've never followed his work, I invite you to pick up any of his anthologies for starters: News of the Universe is a good one, also try The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart (it's subtitled "Poems for Men" but it's not really for men only, he features probably more women poets in there than many other anthologies). He continues his winning streak with this book.

I've read or heard Bly recite poems by many of the authors featured in this book. If you are a Bly fan, it's standard fare: Rilke, Kabir, Rumi, Dickinson, Stevens, Machado. It's nice to have it combined in one book- a compact, travel edition, if you will. Plus there are poems from Mirabai that have not been included in any of his books (although there's a small pocket book of her poems that's sadly out of print). There is a whole section entitled God in the Feminine, welcome and refreshing for men and I think very valuable for women seeking her spiritual path, surrounded as we are by masculine images of God.

The book is divided into 10 sections, by theme. Some of the titles are Starting on the Path, Dying to this World, and The Spirit- Who is a Guest of the Soul- Will Never be at Home on this Earth. Preceding each section Bly gives a little introduction that sets the theme for each. I love his interpretation and gentle guiding. He opened my eyes years ago to reading poetry and looking at the images in a broader way. Bly has received some criticism for his translations, as actually some of his work involves taking the English of other translators and giving it more vernacular language. While I understand and appreciate precision, I would also rather read a Bly translation of, say, Rilke's The Panther. I've seen the original and understand a little German, and to me Bly's ideas about keeping the emotional tenor alive make the poems so much more delightful to read, and his translations lose nothing.

So the poems are arranged in sections by topic and with a sense toward their emotional tenor. This is Bly's greatest strength, I think, and combined with his intelligence and broad interests he has used his senses to put together a wonderful, inspirational book.

For another excellent book in a similar vein, check out The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks. Includes a couple of recipies (I have yet to try them out). Also The Kabir Book, by Robert Bly. The spiritual poems of Kabir, Rumi, and Mirabai are still new to this culture, and very beautiful and delightful. It's nice to see them in the anthology alongside Western poems- especially alongside Western poems. Who knows? Maybe they will change your life. -Mike

Don't waste your time reading reviews. Read this book. It is absolutely amazing. Powerful. Deeply spiritual. Touching. Loving.

What more can I say?...

I first read Robert Bly's earlier anthology, 'News of the Universe : Poems of Twofold Consciousness' (1980), many years ago and often find myself returning to it, not only to re-read my favorites from its 150 poems, but also to re-read Bly's full, informative, and extremely interesting introductions to the six Parts into which the book is divided.

'News of the Universe' is a tightly knit and beautifully assembled whole, and is built on a powerful thesis. Basically what the essays and poems set out to do, and they do it very effectively indeed, is to demonstrate that what Bly calls the "Old Position," the "pride in human reason" and "the conviction that nature is defective because it lacks reason" has had the effect of "deforming all poetry and culture" (page 3). What we must learn to realize and to fully embrace is the notion that human consciousness is only one of the many kinds of consciousness operating in the universe.

Since 'News of the Universe' had such a profound influence on me, and has remained one of my favorite books, I had very high hopes for the present book. After all, its title - 'The Soul is Here for Its Own Joy' - is very promising. Although the statement is perfectly true, there aren't many today who are telling us we are here for our own joy. More often than not what we are being told is that we are here to be good citizens, or good workers, or good party members, or good whatever - but not that we are here to actually enjoy life, though anyone who has observed animals at play ought to suspect as much. So if Bly had succeeded in assembling a whole collection of poems dealing with this vitally important message, it was something I was definitely interested in reading.

You may imagine my disappointment when, on receiving the book and turning to its mere 2-page 'Introduction' (which isn't really an Introduction at all), I found Bly confessing that he had originally intended to name the anthology 'Baskets that Hold God' (page xviii). So why didn't he?

But even worse was to follow, for not only are the Introductions to each of its parts skimpy, and altogether lacking the solid intellectual content of those of his earlier anthology, but I noted that Part X is named : 'THE SPIRIT - WHO IS A GUEST OF THE SOUL - WILL NEVER BE AT HOME ON THIS EARTH.' Gulp! Readers will at once see the glaring contradiction. If the soul is here for its own joy, how can it possibly joy if it will never be at home on this earth? Bly, so far as I can see, seems to want to have his cake and eat it.

The present book, I'm sorry to say, doesn't seem to me to be a particularly well-conceived project at all, and its title is certainly misleading. It contains a number of fine poems. It also contains a lot of flowery God-intoxicated Sufi writing - Kabir, Rumi, etc., - which will appeal to those who find that sort of thing appealing. Frankly I found the book rather monotonous. Perhaps it requires a more 'spiritual' type of reader. It certainly lacks the thrust and excitement of Bly's earlier anthology.

Readers who may be simply looking for an international anthology of 'spiritual' poems, poems about humans and their involvement with what they take to be 'God,' will probably like it. I see Bly as having reneged and fallen into the very anthropocentrism that his earlier anthology provided such an eloquent testimony against. Bly, in short, returns us here to the emotional stew, and seems to have completely forgotten the wonderful news of the universe that his earlier anthology brought.

Robert Bly's compilation of sacred poetry is best read to the music of Loreena McKennit or Hildegard of Bingen. Lights should be low, or natural, and a blank journal should be nearby, ready for you to record your revelations and insights. Bly's assortment is remarkable in that it lifts the reader to divinity by celebrating humanism. A book that positively radiates light.

I chanced upon this book and now rate it as amongst the best on my bookshelf. Many poems were written so long ago (especially Rumi and Kabir) and the power and insight is amazing. That a writer (with a good translator in Coleman Barks) from 800 years ago could touch me so deeply in my spirit is truly amazing. Well, the issues of the spirit transcend time, place and religion probably. I can read 3 lines of a poem by Rumi and it can send me into a reverie for half an hour. The way he expresses his relationship to God seems to touch a deep chord that I cannot quite explain in words. There are mainly 3-4 poets in this book that I especially love and continue to return to. There are others that I hope to connect with in the future. I highly recommend this book to help you think is a deep way about your relationship to your spiritual self and to God.

This is a marvelous, comprehensive collection of "spiritual" verse from a variety of sources, covering several hundred years of writing around and about the subject. The collection reflects the care by which each verse was chosen, and some are remarkable for their wisdom and insight. It can be read front-to-back or by individual choice and one never tires of the subject -- the approach or its interpretation in the hands of Rumi, Dickinson, Whitman Rumi and much more. It is a joy for me to read, and I select from it almost daily.

David Sermersheim

Robert Bly considers many different aspects of spirituality from many different angles in the poetry collection. It's not a big shock that some poets whom Bly has translated are represented, such as Kabir, Mirabai, Antonio Machado and Tomas Transtromer. But there are many other poems with completely different styles in this book, such as Gerald Manley Hopkins and Emily Dickenson.

In the same way that you don't eat everything offered at an all-you-can-eat buffet, if you sit down and read this book from beginning to end, you won't find each and every poem speaking to your condition. But you will almost certainly find some poems which will deeply move you. This is a book to have close by, and browse through every so often.

Stepping Off the Edge: Learning & Living Spiritual Practice
Beautiful book, arranged like the spiritual journey: At first, you feel the call, have a big experience, make a commitment, then forget it all, do your thing in the world until you get in trouble, then commit to spirit again, forget it, go back to the world, mess up, back to spirit, etc. Until you finally really commit. Takes the reader through poetry demonstrating a deeper and deeper commitment to and knowledge of the sacred. Many traditions. Great introduction to the Indian and Middle eastern poets: Poems by Rumi, Kabir, Mirabai, Lalli, all in one volume.

I highly recommend this wonderful collection of poems dedicated to the range of experiences in the quest for spiritual understanding. All those with this quest in mind would do well to read the poetry found here.