Sacred poetry from twelve mystics and saints, rendered brilliantly by Daniel Ladinsky, beloved interpreter of verses by the fourteenth-century Persian poet Hafiz One of 6 Books Oprah Loves to Give as Gifts During the Holidays “All kinds of beautiful poetry.” –Hoda Kotb In this luminous collection, Daniel Ladinsky—best known for his bestselling interpretations of the great Sufi poet Hafiz—brings together the timeless work of twelve of the world’s finest spiritual writers, six from the East and six from the West. Once again, Ladinsky reveals his talent for creating profound and playful renditions of classic poems for a modern audience. Rumi’s joyous, ecstatic love poems; St. Francis’s loving observations of nature through the eyes of Catholicism; Kabir’s wild, freeing humor that synthesizes Hindu, Muslim, and Christian beliefs; St. Teresa’s sensual verse; and the mystical, healing words of Sufi poet Hafiz—these along with inspiring works by Rabia, Meister Eckhart, St. Thomas Aquinas, Mira, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, and Tukaram are all “love poems by God” from writers considered “conduits of the divine.” Together, they form a spiritual treasure to cherish always.

Poetry is exciting, but elusive to most. This is troublesome for Christians because the Bible, John Poch reminds us, is largely composed of poetical verse. In God's Poems, Poch re-introduces sacred text as purposefully poetic, and explains what that means and invites the reader to with this insight live more thoughtfully and beautifully. But that is not all. Poch as a well-established and regarded poet, turns his eye to contemporary poetry and vindicates its function in a "created and creative world." Today many have abandoned the genre as a wasteland of misguided voice that really has nothing to say. The poet is a truth-teller, and Poch as devoted writer, teacher, and believer sends out a renewed call to turn to verse as a means of seeing oneself as God's poeima, or poem (Letter to Ephesians). The depth of self-knowing relates directly to an aptitude to engage the category of poetry at some level. A tragic void is filled with Poch's effort to exhort the reader to patiently reconnect with poetry even though it has been hijacked by persons who want to be heard more than speak well. (This book is essential, therefore, for aspiring poets.) For faithful readers or those seeking to return, Poch is a place to begin to understand contemporary writers worth knowing and which poets of the past must remain with us. In Virgilian fashion, he can see the panorama behind him and that which lies immediately ahead and instills a recovered love of an eternal medium that will be restored to a state of coherency and enlightened perspective. If Poch has faith in poetry it is because poetry is indeed a source of faith. If Justin Martyr claimed that everything that is true belongs to Christians, Poch shows us that everyone who speaks truth is to some degree a poet. Even God with his revealed wisdom chooses poetry as medium par excellence. It is essential to know how poetry works. "Great poems that we consider literature give us what we never expected. They go beyond the usefulness of conveying a feeling and unveiling beauty; and they tell us who we are."

Less Obvious Gods by Lisa Coffman is a book of poetry.

Bestselling poet, writer, and Instagram sensation Nikita Gill returns with a collection of poetry and prose retelling the legends of the Goddesses, both great and small, in their own words. With lyrical prose and striking verse, beloved poet Nikita Gill (Fierce Fairytales, Wild Embers) uses the history of Ancient Greece and beyond to explore and share the stories of the mothers, warriors, creators, survivors, and destroyers who shook the world. In pieces that burn with empathy and admiration for these women, Gill unearths the power and glory of the very foundations of mythology and culture that have been too-often ignored or pushed aside. Complete with beautiful hand-drawn illustrations, Gill's poetry and stories weave old and forgotten tales of might and love into an empowering collection for the modern woman.

A FINALIST FOR THE PEN/WEST TRANSLATION AWARD The 100th Anniversary Edition of a global classic, containing beautiful translations along with the original German text. While visiting Russia in his twenties, Rainer Maria Rilke, one of the twentieth century's greatest poets, was moved by a spirituality he encountered there. Inspired, Rilke returned to Germany and put down on paper what he felt were spontaneously received prayers. Rilke's Book of Hours is the invigorating vision of spiritual practice for the secular world, and a work that seems remarkably prescient today, one hundred years after it was written. Rilke's Book of Hours shares with the reader a new kind of intimacy with God, or the divine—a reciprocal relationship between the divine and the ordinary in which God needs us as much as we need God. Rilke influenced generations of writers with his Letters to a Young Poet, and now Rilke's Book of Hours tells us that our role in the world is to love it and thereby love God into being. These fresh translations rendered by Joanna Macy, a mystic and spiritual teacher, and Anita Barrows, a skilled poet, capture Rilke's spirit as no one has done before.

From a prize-winning poet, a new collection that chronicles a weekend in the life of a group of friends coming of age in East Harlem at the dawn of the hip-hop era Willie Perdomo, a native of East Harlem, has won praise as a hip, playful, historically engaged poet whose restlessly lyrical language mixes "city life with a sense of the transcendent" (NPR.org). In his fourth collection, The Crazy Bunch, Perdomo returns to his beloved neighborhood to create a vivid, kaleidoscopic portrait of a "crew" coming of age in East Harlem at the beginning of the 1990s. In poems written in couplets, vignettes, sketches, riffs, and dialogue, Perdomo recreates a weekend where surviving members of the crew recall a series of tragic events: "That was the summer we all tried to fly. All but one of us succeeded."

In this powerful new collection, one of our most dazzlingly inventive and prolific poets tackles a universal theme: the agonizing search for God that is part and parcel of the livse of all of us. As always, Anne Sexton's latest work derives from intense personal experience. She explores the dilemmas and triumphs, and the agony and the peace of her highly unorthodox faith, sharing all her findings with her readers as the quest progresses. Anne Sexton's poetry speaks to our most passionate yearnings for love and our deepest fears of evil and death. The uncompromising honesty and vividness of "The Awful Rowing Toward God" confirms her stature as one of the most compelling voices of our time. -- From publisher's description.

Poems to the Child-God is the first full-length study in English of the verse of Surdas, or Sur, traditionally ranked among the three greatest poets writing in Hindi. Combining introduction, critical study, and annotated translation in a single volume, this work introduces the general reader to a major sixteenth-century mystic poet, best known for his lyrics in praise of the child-god Krsna (Krishna), and proposes, to both specialists and general readers, a way of reading Sur's verse significantly different from that found in traditional critical approaches. A general introduction provides an overview of the poet’s life and time, the religious and literary milieu that informed his work, and the mythology associated with his chosen deity, Krsna. Part 1 looks closely at individual verses from the Sursagar, examining the ways in which the poet manipulates the structures of language, poetic convention, and mythology to develop a theme central to the literature of Krsna-worship: the irony of incarnation. It is, Bryant argues, the irony of a child who never stops growing, beyond manhood and into godhood, seldom glimpsing the still more awesome truth: that he is and has always been the source and substance of the universe. Part 2 presents an anthology of Sur’s verse in English translation. The poems have been arranged to portray the Krsna tale as Sur understood it. Sectional introductions provide the reader with the classical outlines of the tale and point out where the poet made alterations or embellishments of his own. A set of notes on the translations, and a glossary of potentially unfamiliar terms and characters, further assist the Western reader in approaching the work of a major figure in the religious and literary history of India. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1978.

Written between 1927 and 1933—and never published in English before—this is the intimate spiritual diary of a devout European Jew, loyal to the revelation at Sinai and afflicted with reverence for all human beings.

This fabulous volume, containing compositions of mystic poets across India, from Kabir, Annamacharya and Chandidas to Tukaram, Meera, Akkamahadevi and many more, reminds us of the rich palette of Bhakti. Featuring classic translations as well as new, unpublished ones by acclaimed poets, it will delight seekers and poetry lovers alike.