Daniel Ladinsky

Daniel Ladinsky (born 1948) is an American poet and interpreter of mystical poetry, born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. Over a twenty-year period, beginning in 1978, he spent extensive time in a spiritual community at Meherabad, in western India, where he worked in a rural clinic free to the poor, and lived with the intimate disciples and family of Meher Baba. He has written four works based on poetry of 14th-century Persian Sufi poet Hafiz: I Heard God Laughing (1996), The Subject Tonight Is Love (1996) The Gift (1999), and A Year With Hafiz:Daily Contemplations, (2011) as well as an anthology, Love Poems from God:Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West (2002), and The Purity of Desire:100 Poems of Rumi (2012). In introductions to his books, Ladinsky notes that he offers interpretations and renderings of the poets, rather than literal or scholarly translations. His work is based on conveying and being "faithful to the living spirit" of Hafiz, Rumi, as well as other mystic poets. In 2017 Ladinsky published Darling, I Love You Poems from the Hearts of Our Glorious Mutts, featuring his original haiku, illustrated by Patrick McDonnell, creator of the internationally syndicated MUTTS comic strip. 2Early life and background Ladinsky was born and brought up in suburbs of St. Louis, Missouri, where his father was a wealthy developer. He grew up with two brothers, and had a Jewish upbring as his father was Jewish, though he has also baptized as a Catholic, as his mother was Christia