I Heard God Laughing: Renderings of Hafiz (Paperback)

by Hafiz (Author), Daniel Ladinsky (Author), Henry S. Mindlin (Author), H. Wilberforce Clarke (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 161 pages
• Publisher: Sufism Reoriented (August 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0915828189
• ISBN-13: 978-0915828180
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 7.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #111,542 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #17 in	Books > Literature & Fiction > Poetry > Asian
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hafiz trues the course of our journey towards Love, December 21, 1998

By A Customer

So much beauty! In this joyous book Hafiz appears to us as a beacon of pure light in contemporary garb. These deeply tender, witty, clear-eyed and fullest-hearted renditions have brightened my life. Hafiz can't help but true the course on our journey towards living Love. Because for him, in fact, nothing else exists. For Hafiz, only Love is Real.

Hafiz has influenced and nourished a great many through the years. In the West, inspired notables include Goethe, Nietzsche, Byron, Hugo and Emerson. Emerson wrote of Hafiz in his journals, "He fears nothing. He sees too far; he sees throughout; such is the only man I wish to see and be." And Goethe exclaimed, "This is madness, I know well, Hafiz has no peer!"

_I Heard God Laughing_ is a perfect gem of a book. Go ahead. Take Hafiz home with you. Why--he may even lead the way, dancing and singing all the while.

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extremely Simple, Extremely Profound, March 1, 2003

By	Bruce Kendall "BEK" (Southern Pines, NC) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

On its surface this collection of simple wisdom would appear almost New-Agey in terms of its contents. The book is essentially just a series of messages sent from a "seeker" to a loved one. Yet there is much that lies beneath the surface and that is very, very genuine at play here. It is in fact the perfect antidote to the sort of fluff that passes for spiritual writing these days. These are messages addressed to the "real" selves that all of us harbour, to the godhead that dwells inside us. Divine light shines through the pages of this book. Forget the self help books for once and allow your mind and spirit to drink in the celestial essence that Hafiz, et al impart. For a real journey of the spirit, take this book along with you to someplace peaceful and quiet and let yourself travel.

BEK

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Understanding Hafiz, January 31, 2001

By	poet - See all my reviews

Having read the very critical review by "Ali" who seems to fail to comprehend the difficulty in translating Hafiz into English I would like to defend the "Renderings". I have read just about every English translation of anything that Hafiz wrote beginning with Clark and ending with Bly. There is no way to translate without loosing something and unfortunately the beauty, the melody, and the rythym of the original farsi is lost in all the translations by the virtue of the language differences. "I heard God Laughing: Renderings of Hafiz" is well named and titled. There is a spirit behind the poetry that is captured in these renderings that I am sure Hafiz himself would approve of. It is that beauty that I am sure he wanted to in some small way capture for future generations as he shared his devout love affair with the "beloved rose" of his life. The renderings will help any sincere aspirant on the road to the "tavern" of "divine wine drinkers". Those of us who have tasted the wine can truly find the scent of it in the renderings. The renderings inspire the dance of the soul!