Rating: 
Summary: A Gift for the spirit
Review: Its said of Haifz, and esp. the "Gift" that if you would randomly open a page therein lies the answer to your question\thought for the day.. whatever you may choose to call it. I bought this book as a Gift for a friend and kept it as a Gift for myself.. have given it as a Gift many times since, and everytime you open the pages something new and wonderful happens.
Dunno about the transalations and their accuracy - but really its such a phenomenal book, who cares.. the spirit soars and in the end (or the begining) i think that is what Hafiz would have had.
Get it.
Rating:
Summary: Hafiz is for you Heart, NOT your Mind
Review: If your heart can hear, your mind can die in the deepest peace of the Love that can be evoked. Poets express the unknowable in words. Poet Sages like Hafiz, Rumi and the American ee cummings cannot be understood, only experienced.
If you can leave your head behind, dear Ones, an Awakening CAN happen. Meanhile, as Ramesh Balsekar put it, paraphrasing ee cummungs:
If you can take it and BE, just BE. If not, cheer up, go about other people's business, and do or undo unto them till you drop.
I would point you to two poems: "Tired of Speeking Sweetly" and "Bring the Man to Me" ...
with love
charlie
Rating: 
Summary: Hold your nose here!
Review: I have got no idea whether these translations are genuine or not. The only thing I know, for sure, is that they really stink. Ya, for sure, after all these eons, the Sun does not say to the Earth, "You owe me." How completely stupid. Sometimes, people owe one another, and sometimes they don't. This nonsense about a speaking Sun and a listening Earth doesn't bring anything to the table! "I saw the Earth smiling" ?? Oh, get a clue. Go buy some real poetry, not this nonsense!! "Real" poetry might be (take your pick) Li Po, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Yeats, Marlowe, Dante, Virgil, Homer, Eliot, Pound... and I'm not going to waste any more time here! Outta here!
Rating:
Summary: Understanding the Ladinsky problem!
Review: I truly do think that more people should pay attention to their teachers. In the case of this book by Mr. Ladinsky, there are two completely separate questions:
1. Do you (did you) like the poems in this book?
2. Were these poems written by Mr. Ladinsky, or by Hafez? It is very important not to confuse these two questions! The fact that you like the poems in this book does NOT mean that they were written by Hafez, any more than it means that they were written by Shakespeare. I don't know a lot of Persian (Farsi) myself, but my own reading over the past few decades, plus some input from a dearly beloved friend who is a professor of Persian poetry, tells me this: Hafez NEVER (or very rarely) uses the word "God." That would be "khoda" in Persian, or "Allah" in Arabic. You can read for entire weeks in Hafez, and never find the word "khoda" or "Allah," unless it is in some formula, such as "al-hamdullah." So how does Mr. Ladinsky explain this?
Rating:
Summary: Look at the smile on the earth's lips...
Review: In the world of Islam, "Sufi" refers to a certain type of religious mystic. The word "suf" (pronounced "soof") merely means "wool," and a "Soofi" was a religious mystic who wore a particular type of woolen cloak -- as an emblem of poverty and righteousness. Now, one very interesting thing about Hafez (the real Hafez) was that he was a religious mystic who bitterly hated the orthodox Muslims of his time. That is to say, he found his own love of God in his own way, and avoided the ways of the sheep. That all seems easy enough, except for this: Hafez also hated the Sufis! Every time he mentions them, and their righteous woolen cloaks, he throws them in the same trash-heap with the orthodox Muslims! All you have to do is open the book that he wrote, and read. Hafez is a very unlikely candidate for a "Great Sufi Master." He bitterly disliked Sufis! Ah well! The world goes on!
Rating: 
Summary: Close but not perfect
Review: While I think that Ladinsky has done a commendable job translating much of the essence of these poems, it is clear that he wanted to "Christ" -ify the message. References to "God" and "Christ" or Jesus are probably not appropriate translations. While I do not doubt that Hafez probably reached a point where he transcended common distinctions between religions, he was a Muslim and there are issues about using "God" as a translation for Allah and references to Jesus as a diety run against the current of monotheism. There is no need to present the poems in a way that would make them seem Christian. Most Christians can appreciate them for what they are as songs to Allah. Just as anyone can appreciate the beauty of the Psalms or even Shakespeare's sonnets. Dont get me wrong, I do enjoy Ladinsky's work and it does persent Hafez in a an attractive accessible manner. I just feel that presenting them with the Christian slant is distracting where it needn't be. Certainly you should add this to your collection especially for the casual enjoyer. For serious access to Hafez, this should be supplemented with more serious works.
Rating: 
Summary: Craft, ear and heart
Review: Poetry is a craft. It is said Yeats worked prose into poetry, some of the finest of the last century. "...'A line will take us hours maybe;
Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought,
Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.'" However, translation is, we must admit, a ruse. It cannot be done to the satisfaction of all. To his credit, Mr. Ladinsky admits as much in his preface. Nevertheless, we are far better for his attempt then without it. At times, I feel as if we missed the 'soul' of the poem but never the effort. If I cannot stand as close to the fire as I would wish, I am still thankful for the warmth Mr. Ladinsky has bought to us. It is well worth the experience.
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