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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 891.4312
EAN: 9780807063798
ISBN: 0807063797
Label: Beacon Press
Manufacturer: Beacon Press
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 71
Publication Date: 1993-02-01
Publisher: Beacon Press
Studio: Beacon Press

Forty-four of the Ecstatic Poems of Kabir

"Kabir's poems give off a marvelous radiant intensity. . . . Bly's versions . . . have exactly the luminous depth that permits and invites many rereadings, many studyings-even then they remain as fresh as ever."
-The New York Times Book Review

Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Great book
Review: I've known and loved this book for years. A couple of the reviewers below really rake Bobby Bly over the coals for his translation -- unfairly, I think. First, Robert confesses right up front to the fact that he's not really translating, since he doesn't read or speak Kabir's language. Instead, he's meditating on the old English translations done by Rabindranath Tagore, and then putting them into modern, colloquial English. That's really "transliteration", not translation. Is that fair? Well, it's basically what Coleman Barks has done with Rumi (at Bly's instigation, by the way), and I'd hate to have missed Coleman's versions of Rumi. Coleman admits he can't do Rumi justice, or Rumi's beautiful original Persian. How can you possibly capture the music of the original, the multiple meanings and subtle cultural connotations? You can't. Having tried to translate some Chinese poetry, I can tell you, all you can hope to do is capture something of the spirit, something real but intangible. Coleman has done that with Rumi, and Bly has done that with Kabir. If you think of this book less like an exact translation, and more like a wonderful conversation between a great poet of the past and a great poet of today you'll see what's actually going on here.

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Customer Rating:
Review Summary: why why why
Review: Kabir's poems have been translated into English by many people.
Read any one of them. But don't read this contamination, this desecration of Kabir's beautiful poems. Bly isn't translating from any original language. He translates from an English translation that he himself considers "hopeless" into his own version of them. What can he hope to accomplish by this? Aside from the fact that the translations he works from were done by Rabindranath Tagore and he is unable to appreciate what are, in my opinion, some of the most beautiful poems ever, how many times removed from the truth (to paraphrase Plato) is he trying to get? He admittedly violates chronology by replacing "a deadly weapon" with "a loaded gun". He should just have used that gun to shoot his manuscript to shreds. To all aspiring poets, never ever do to another man's work what Robert Bly has done here to Kabir and Tagore.

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Customer Rating:
Review Summary: A Constant Conscious Communion and Unity of the Spirit
Review: Few major achievements of world literature are as little known to Americans as the great ecstatic poetry of the Hindus and Sufis, as exemplified by the work of the 15th century master, Kabir. Kabir has been translated into English only once before, in a collaboration between the British scholar of mysticism, Evelym Underhill, and the Bengali poet, Rabindranath Tagore. Unfortunately, Tagore's Victorian English was simply not equal to Kabir's directness, spontaneity, and irreverent humor. While a creditable scholarly accomplishment, the translation did not make the joyous vigor of Kabir available to contemporary Americans.

Working from the Underhill-Tagore translation, Robert Bly has done more than retranslate the words into American diction. An accomplished poet himself, he has essentially breathed life back into Kabir's work. "American readers will be surprised by several qualities of these poems," Bly predicts. "For one thing, they have humor -- something unheard of in the religious poetry of the West. For another, they reject the idea of a heavy split between body and soul (Kabir says: 'We mustn't give it a name, lest silly people start talking again about the body and the soul'), and celebrate the natural unity of the psyche."

Most Western religious poetry has been written within the orthodox church, and has been essentially uncritical of its basic tenets; opposition to church dogma has been left largely to secular critics. In contrast, Kabir stands apart from Hindu and Moslem conventions -- but without insisting that their ground is any less religious than his. In intensely spiritual poetry he challenges the orthodox holy men with such near-playful queries as: "Suppose you scrub your ethical skin until it shines, but inside there is no music, then what?"

To Kabir a holy man is first of all a man -- and then perhaps incidentally holy. He revels in exposing their absurdities when and where he finds them. Probably no Western critic of the guru cults which have proliferated among us in recent years could get away with the fun Kabir has at the expense of the Yogis -- when he catches them being simple-minded: "The Yogi comes along in his famous orange; but if inside he is colorless, then what?"

One thing is certain. You do not have to become convinced of the cultural significance of these long-neglected poems to justify reading and re-reading this collection. They stand on their own outside any historical or cultural context. They amaze and delight. And in the ever-present moment, whether you have never experienced an ecstatic moment or whether you simply await the next one to unfold from within your awareness, who knows: just may one of these poems it be.

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Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Pearls before Swine
Review: If there was ever such a thing as blasphemy, this would be it.

I have always hated it when classic Urdu and Sanskrit literature have been translated into English for the Western reader, and I have particularly despised the end-result when the translator himself is Western. This sort of poetry just does not read as poetically or deeply in English. In Sanskrit and Urdu, the words leap off a page with double or triple meanings and possibilities - indeed, the work of Kabir in his original language are jumping with various intentions and nuances that bear repeated reading. However, in English, they lack the depth and appear dull and lifeless.

Despite this obvious shortcoming, Kabir's poems translated in English do have some effect - though as one reviewer put it, the effect is at times comical - though not the fault of the poet, let me insist. The horrendous translation work done by Robert Bly should be read to be believed. Readers who have been amazed by Kabir's poems in their original language will be amazed here for totally different reasons.

Even more laughable are Bly's [...] attempts at cooking up a biography. Its obvious that this author has done minimal research. And considering that the word 'probably' features more than a dozen times in the introduction, you wonder if the author believes if Kabir really existed or not. Bly's explanations are even more bizarre - ranging from the this-may-have-happened to the oh-by-the-way-this-may-have-happened-instead variety are numbingly irritating, and by the end of it, you may well want to throw this away and get the definitive Kabir book translated by Rabindranath Tagore instead.

If you're a real Sufi lover or Kabir fan, you'd think twice before investing in [a book] such as this. Everything about this book made me mad. I have also read the other Kabir book called 'Cabir', which made me realize that when you're not really sure about anything about the person about whom you're writing, its better not to write about him at all. All these biographies are insipid and tired efforts. I'd advise the translators to desist from doing anymore translation work of the great Indian poets. Its cruel and despicable.

Not at all recommended. There are much better Kabir translations on the Web, so check those out instead.

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Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Ecstasy... and Agony
Review: When I discovered the Kabir Book, it was like a breath of fresh air. Is this a spiritual book? Sure, yes. But it is also hilariously funny and entertaining, if you ask me.

Finding Kabir was great. This ancient sage skewers all kinds of religious dogmas and funky practices. It is comforting to know that he pursued his path and still snickered at stern, narcissistic people who shaved their heads and wore uncomfortable burlap. Kabir's sarcasm and satire is especially timely in light of recent corrupted interpretations of yoga, Buddhism, Sufism and other spiritual/religious approaches.

In essense, Kabir offers something of a "Newage Treatment Plant." If you like metaphysics without a bunch of gunk polluting it, then Kabir is for you.

I have one concern. Robert Bly states that he has changed the wording and content of poems to make them understandable to a contemporary audience. I've heard that much is lost and possibly even corrupted with such a translation. I'm not sure where Kabir ends and Bly begins.

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