The Penguin Book of Spiritual Verse: 110 Poets on the Divine

Poets have always looked to the skies for inspiration, and have written as a way of getting closer to the power and beauty they sense in nature, in each other and in the cosmos. This anthology serves as a truly holistic and global survey to a lyric conversation about the divine that has been going on for millenia. Beginning with the earliest attributable author in all of human literature, the twenty-third century BC Sumerian High Priestess Enheduanna, and taking in a constellation of voices - from King David, to Lao Tzu, to the fourteenth century Ethiopian national religious epic, the Kebra Nagast - this anthology presents a number of canonical voices like Blake, Rumi, Dickinson and Tagore, alongside lesser-anthologized diverse voices that showcase the breathtaking multiplicity of ways in which humanity has responded to the Divine across the centuries. These poets' voices commune across the centuries, offering readers a chance to experience for themselves the vast and powerful interconnectedness of these incantations orbiting the most elemental of all subjects - our spirit. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Kaveh Akbar is an Iranian American poet and scholar. He is the author of the poetry collections Pilgrim Bell, Calling a Wolf a Wolf and Portrait of the Alcoholic, and the novel Martyr!. He teaches Creative Writing and Poetry of the Divine at Purdue University, Indiana.