A Bird in His Hand — Paul Smith

~A BIRD IN HIS HAND~ POEMS FOR AVATAR MEHER BABA by Paul Smith On a ship leaving Bombay for Italy in 1965 the Author met a man who had just met the Indian born Perfect Spiritual Master of Iranian descent Meher Baba, (Merwan S. Irani). After a year investigating his life and teaching he accepted him as his Spiritual Master in 1966, and from his books heard of the Persian poet of ghazals, Hafiz of Shiraz, whom many believed (including Meher Baba) was the greatest poet that ever lived but had not been adequately translated into English. While working on translating the poetry of Hafiz, Kabir, Sadi and many other Master Poets for the past forty years he has continued to compose his own poems and this book is a compilation of most of those (except for Compassionate Rose and Pune: The City of God) that are dedicated to his Spiritual Master, Meher Baba. 424 pages. COMMENTS ON PAUL SMITH'S VERSION OF HAFIZ'S DIVAN. It is not a joke... the English version of ALL the ghazals of Hafiz is a great feat and of paramount importance. I am astonished. If he comes to Iran I will kiss the fingertips that wrote such a masterpiece inspired by the Creator of all.? Dr. Mir Mohammad Taghavi (Dr. of Literature) Tehran. Superb translations. 99% Hafiz 1% Paul Smith. Ali Akbar Shapurzman, translator into Persian and knower of Hafiz's Divan off by heart. Smith has probably put together the greatest collection of literary facts and history concerning Hafiz.? Daniel Ladinsky (Penguin Books author). I have never seen such a good translation and I would like to write a book in Farsi and introduce his Introduction to Iranians. Mr B. Khorramshai, Academy of Philosophy, Tehran. I was very impressed with the beauty of these books.' Dr. R.K. Barz. Faculty of Asian Studies, Australian National University. Paul Smith is a poet, author and translator of over 80 books of Sufi poets from the Persian, Arabic, Urdu, and other languages including Hafiz, Sadi, Nizami, Rumi, 'Attar, Sana'i, Jahan Khatun, Obeyd Zakani, Nesimi, Kabir, Anvari, Ansari, Jami, Mu'in, Bedil, Khayyam, Rudaki, Yunus Emre and many others, as well as poetry, fiction, plays, biographies and 12 screenplays.