Hafiz, a secret Sufi, came to prominence in his day as a writer of love poems. That love transformed into an all-consuming passion for union with the divine. In The Gift, Daniel Ladinsky bestows on us the impassioned yet whimsical strains of Hafiz s ecstasy. Never forced or awkward, Ladinsky s Hafiz whispers in your ear and pounds in your chest, naming God in a hundred metaphors. I once asked a bird, How is it that you fly in this gravity Of darkness? She responded, Love lifts Me. Like Fitzgerald s version of Khayyam s Rubaiyat, the language of The Gift strikes a contemporary chord, resonating in the reader s mind and then in the heart. Ladinsky s language is plain, fresh, playful--dancing with an expert cadence that invites and surprises. If it is true, as Hafiz says, that a poet is someone who can pour light into a cup, reading Ladinsky s Hafiz is like gulping down the sun. --Brian Bruya