Penguin Book of Spiritual Verse

<b>An inspiring new selection of poems exploring faith and the divine featuring poets from across the world from antiquity to the present compiled by renowned poet and author of <i>Martyr!</i> Kaveh Akbar <p/>A Penguin Classic</b> <p/>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 is a holistic and global survey of a lyric conversation about the divine one which has been ongoing for millennia. <p/>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 from the <i>Epic of Gilgamesh</i> to the Malian <i>Epic of Sundiata</i> - this selection presents a number of canonical voices like Blake Dickinson and Tagore alongside lesser-anthologized diverse voices going up to the present day that showcase the breathtaking multiplicity of ways humanity has responded to the divine across place and time. <p/>These poets' voices commune between millenia 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.