Rating: 
Summary: One of the best books of the year...
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Another Treasure!
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Another Treasure!
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Inspired renderings lighten the load
Review: Daniel Ladinsky has done it again! His translations of the mystics are mystical in themselves, full of radiance and lightheartedness. This book is a keeper, only you'll have to keep buying more because you'll have to give this one away to all your friends. If you want more light and fire in your life, this is the book to get.
Rating:
Summary: this is the greatest!
Review: Daniel Ladinsky has done it again! His translations of the mystics are mystical in themselves, full of radiance and lightheartedness. This book is a keeper, only you'll have to keep buying more because you'll have to give this one away to all your friends. If you want more light and fire in your life, this is the book to get.
Rating:
Summary: Divine reflections
Review: Daniel Ladinsky's description of the genesis of these poems is refreshing and honest. He doesn't claim to interpret literally, he says "most of what is in this book could be said to be an avant-garde portrait of these remarkable historic figures. I have used and mixed whichever of their colors I felt were the most genuine, the most relative to the present, and were the most capable of bringing the reader into the extraordinary experience of these great souls. For their experience of God foretells our own." This inspired approach goes directly to the heart. These are poems for lovers of the Beloved who are eager to celebrate by the warmth of His fire. Read this poetry and enjoy beautiful reflections inspired by the lives of some of the greatest divine figures known to mankind.
Rating:
Summary: True Romance
Review: Faithful to the title's intimation, 'Love Poems from God' is a raucous, mesmerizing valentine of an anthology, assembling twelve eminent mystics from East and West to compare notes on the pursuit and capture of the ultimate Loved One. Cracking the binding at any point on this volume tends to snag one with the bracingly accessible spiritual insights inside, which then demand a second look that repeatedly instigates a taste for more. Academics are bound to pull a few fire alarms at the liberties taken along the way, but Dan Ladinsky is forthright enough about his approach, which amounts to roughhousing as often as playing with traditional concepts of authorship. His rationale is intriguing: Equating, in the old-fashioned way, the letter of the law with death and the spirit with life, Ladinsky roots his "portraits" of these spiritual savants in an intuitive standard of his own apprehension, then reassembles their words to clothe the shape he's found within. The great intrigue here is that Ladinsky seeks out a piece of inner turf where poet, interpreter and reader stand together, so that his re-tunings must sound out against the deepest inner promptings of each individual that encounters them. It's a standard of viability as rigorous in its own way as the fine-print exactitude of academia and clearly many times more alive. Certainly the thrust of this method is closer in spirit to the lives lived by these accomplished and much-loved seekers. The brief and moving biographies that introduce Rabia, St. Francis, Tukaram, St. John of the Cross, Kabir, Thomas Aquinas, et. al. make clear the near universal ostracism that these great lovers of God were made to suffer for the brazenness of their vision by the social and religious arbiters of their respective eras. Whatever tradeoff in literalness Ladinsky must make in his rough-and-tumble insistence on bringing such profound passion to life for the modern reader is abundantly offset by the stunning vividness with which these poets are reintroduced to us. Viewing the proof on the page, one suspects that Ladinsky can deliver on this kind of spiritual fervor -- mostly forgotten amidst our material advances -- only because he has tasted a bit of its fire and ice himself -- sort of a war correspondent ducking shrapnel on the spiritual path. No doubt he has put himself in the line of fire in some other ways as well; the timeless jockeying for stature among established religions has become a little heated of late, as many will have read in any morning's newspaper. As these mad hostilities escalate, and citadels of sanity and compassion crumble all over the place, it amounts to an act of heroism to step out front and insist on the existence of God's love as shameless and everywhere, particularly in the nakedly earthy terms Ladinsky has chosen here. As often as the assertion has been made that an identical ecstatic revelation is the impetus for every warring church, perhaps no one has made good on proving this as fearlessly and charmingly as Ladinsky in this volume. So at each other's mercy as we are now, only a mass retreat to that boundaryless home of the heart can ever save us from our tendency to go so viciously blind. Dan Ladinsky has cribbed notes from humanity's greatest explorers of this terrain and penciled out the most inviting guide map we could hope for. All told, this is a unique door that's thrown open. In a world where nothing much else is working, it may be the most effective help we can offer to take a peek inside.
Rating: 
Summary: A book with too much open-minded error
Review: I did not know poetry until I read the poetry in this book. This is poetry to remember. Its unfortunate that I was not introduced to any of this poetry earlier in my life; it should be standard reading in high school english classes. If it were, not a single student would leave high school without a beloved poem in his or her heart. If you are too stingy to buy the book, at least check it out from a libarary.
Rating:
Summary: I did not know God
Review: I did not know poetry until I read the poetry in this book. This is poetry to remember. Its unfortunate that I was not introduced to any of this poetry earlier in my life; it should be standard reading in high school english classes. If it were, not a single student would leave high school without a beloved poem in his or her heart. If you are too stingy to buy the book, at least check it out from a libarary.
Rating:
Summary: Heavenly! :o)
Review: I picked this book out of my pile of unread books about midnight, and spent the entire night reading, meditating on the poems, and finding myself unable to but the book down! I have purchased several more copies to give as presents. I also plan to read many of these poems prior to meditation when teaching a yoga class... This is a book that I will cherish for years.
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