Inspired Drunkenness: The Poetry of Hafez

Since the 1960s, Robert Bly has helped introduce many foreign language poets to American readers. These have included Rumi, Kabir, and other poets from the ecstatic Islamic tradition. In The Angels Knocking on the Tavern Door, Bly and Leonard Lewisohn (a noted scholar of Sufism and Islam) offer thirty translations from Hafez.

Last night I heard angels pounding on the door
Of the tavern. They had kneaded the clay of Adam,
And they threw the clay in the shape of a wine cup.

Bly describes Hafez’s poems as moving “in a jagged manner.” Hafez’s poems are ghazals: comprised of rhyming couplets, each stanza can substantively stand on its own (Bly and Lewisohn don’t adhere strictly to the form in these translations). Bly playfully warns that “one has to be light on one’s feet to read a Hafez poem all the way through. A poem of his might begin in some pre-historical time, before the creation of human beings, and that would lead directly to a description of Muhammad as a fisherman with a net or to a complaint that Hafez is wasting his life.”

Whether linear or “jagged,” Hafez’s poems are energetic and unrestrained, and move quickly. Topics range from resisting the clerical hierarchy to getting drunk.

Don’t expect obedience, promise keeping, or rectitude
From me; I’m drunk. I’ve been famous for carrying
A wine pitcher around since the First Covenant with Adam.

Hafez’s ecstatic approach to life, including drinking and carousing, is grounded in the Sufi tradition, especially in the ideal of the rind – the “inspired libertine.” According to Lewisohn, the rind is “a righteous sinner, a blessed reprobate, a pious rake, a holy renegade from the faith …” The rind’s lifestyle is in part based on the rejection of the material world and an understanding that the world to come is the true one. Ultimately, the goal of approaching the divine underpins much of Hafez’s poetry.

Purely because of his love for you, Hafez became
As rich as Solomon; and from his longing for union with you,
Like Solomon, he has nothing but wind in his hands.

Bly and Lewishohn’s translations are buoyant and rich – a consistent pleasure to read. However, Bly’s translations of different poets have been criticized for sounding the same. For example, in Can Poetry Matter? Essays on Poetry and American Culture, Dana Gioia writes, “In his hands, dramatically different poets like Lorca and Rilke, Montale and Machado, not only all sounded alike, they all sounded like Robert Bly … ” (p. 153).

A perusal will reveal that these translations of Hafez do indeed share key similarities with Bly’s translations of other mystic poets. The rhythm and cadence of the lines are similar. They share a colloquial, idiomatic language, too. For instance, here is an excerpt from a translation of Rumi:

My poems resemble the bread of Egypt – one night
Passes over the bread, and you can’t eat it anymore.

So gobble my poems down now, while they’re still fresh,
Before the dust of the world settles on them.2

When the topics are similar, it becomes even more difficult to distinguish the authors of the poems. In the following example, the poet Ghalib mentions wine drinking. The poem sounds like it could have been written by Hafez:

Just put a wineglass and some wine in front of me;
Words will fall out of my mouth like apple blossoms.

People imagine that I hate, but it’s merely jealously.
That’s why I scream, “Don’t say her name in my presence!”3

Despite the similarities, however, a distinct voice does emerge in Angels Knocking on the Tavern Door. After just a few readings, the reader is able to discern and appreciate Hafez’s unique personality, likes and dislikes, and set of concerns.

The Angels Knocking on the Tavern Door provides a tantalizing taste of Hafez. Hafez’s poetry offers so much – from relevant responses to contemporary religious questions to a model of vigorous living. Most fundamentally, the poetry is a blast.