Felicia Ooi; Sufi Poetry

Sufi Poetry was a rather different style of poetry than the others that we have been exposed to in the class. The poems were mostly about love, and God, and each different poet has a different style of writing. Symbols like birds and flowers and water were used to represent several different aspects of love and religion.

I enjoyed reading Sufi Poetry because the poems were very soothing and easy to read, and they were also very meaningful.

Sufi Poetry, Ralph Monfort

Normally I am not a fan of poetry however, I seem to tolerate Sufi Poetry more than other poetry. One thing I was not found of was the fact that it was very big religion. Sufi Poetry uses a large amount of imagery with the birds and the flowers. I didn't like that use of the metaphors. However, overall Sufi Poetry is interesting and not as complicated as other poetry.

Laurence Chan, Sufi Poetry

The last week we have been studying Sufi poetry. We've read and analyzed many poems by several poets. As we were attempting to write our own Sufi-style poetry, I was reminded of the frustration I felt through the usage of metaphors and nature. Most sufi poems have the same characteristics of nature, birds and flying, and flowers. The poems could provide good lessons or insight, but most are too vague considering they are religious poems that are supposed to guide you.

Sufi Poetry

We have read several differnt types of peotry in the class. However, Sufi poetry by all three authors; Attar, Hafiz, and Rumi were very religious and symbols such as birds to represent after life. As an atheist, I found their poems are very nonsense. It contains lots of meaning in that short lines, and sometimes it was really confusing to understand underlying meaning of specific symbols. The poems give meaning of life in definitions of religions but i figure it is very hypocritical and idealistic to follow certain ideas. But the wordings and descriptions were beautifully written, and makes the reader to imagine the whole scene. I really dont prefer to read religous literatures but some poems are remarkably attractive regardless of its meaning in religion.

Sufi Poetry

I do not often like to read poetry but with the Sufi poetry it was not difficult or painful to read. I liked the sufi poetry because i found it to be enlightening and inspiring. I liked that the dominant themes were life and love. I did not find the fact that poetry was also very religion related to be much of a problem, in fact most of the time it didn't register with me that they were religious because the poems often applied to many subjects. They were also easy to read because they were not very long. I also enjoyed the use of symbolism and metaphors because it allows the reader to put more thought into the poetry and possibly come up with more then one meaning.

Sufi Poetry

Sufi poetry is by far the most existential poetry we've come across in class to date. It's interesting that this poetry is considered to be related to religion in that it references and discussed God, yet it outwardly derides traditional religious practices as being too showy. It discusses transcendence and achieving a higher state of being, of experiencing ecstasy upon the reunion of the personal soul with the great Soul. A lot of natural imagery is used in Sufi poetry, such as birds, clouds, and flowers (the rose especially), to signify the longing and desire to achieve the highest state of consciousness in which the self dies to the whole. Traditionally, Sufis have had many methods of altering one's state of consciousness, including singing, dancing, and partaking of mind-altering substances such as bhang, a cannabis plant derivative. I'm sure the bhang helped contribute to the strong theme of love being the underlying force of the universe. Love is more than just the theme of most of the poems; it seems to be the purpose of life to a Sufi. Feeling love and sharing love are very important to the dedicated Sufi.

William Chiu

The Sufi poems differ from the poems we read last week in both content and language. These poems are very relaxing to read because they deal with very mellow topics such as love, flying, and death. However they are not my style of poetry because they feel very cheesy portaying hippie themes almost. The poem that was the most interesting for me to analyze would be the poem by Attar dealing with the meaning of life. I found it very interesting how the auhtor says that people should find themselves while they are alive. These poems which deal with life make one wonder how one should go about living life to fully grasp what their life's meaning is. After reading this short yet inspiring poem, I was thinking about myself for a good few minutes. The other poems seem very much alike because of the repetitious subject matter so I did not find as much appeal in those poems.

Sufi Poetry

As most students in the class, I was a bit nervous to try and write a Sufi poem because I felt only the poets who’d master this style could produce such a work. I tried to capture the imagery that is so common in many of the poems, using key themes like flight, love, god and death. I actually liked how my poem turned out. I find Sufi poetry to be interesting when it is actually broken down into simple terms in class; the underlying messages can give one a lot to think about when it comes to life, morals and things of that kind.

Sufism

After being introduced to Sufi poetry, it seems to me their main focus is their devotion to god and love. For instance, there are poems that deal with flight and death as a way to get closer to god. Also is a sense of searching for who they are and where there place in life is. Sufi poems are often in first person narrative which makes the words and context more personal and reflective. The video, along with the background information, of how Sufi poetry can be performed was really interesting. I found the whole idea of “tripping” in order to fully experience the style quite attention-grabbing.

Courtney Lum

I actually found Sufi poetry to be quite beautiful and interesting to read. I found the language and the imagery created in the poetry to be simple, yet truly beautiful. I liked how the poems were in reference to religious views of love, life, and death, and yet the religious views were not imposed and thrown upon the reader as a means of spreading their religion and converting new followers. The simple imagery, especially of that of death, is a huge theme in many of these poems, but death is not something that is feared, but almost revered in the poems. The poems make death sound natural and beautiful.

Willie Ho

Sufi poetry expanded my understanding of poetry as a whole. I always thought that the language of poets was difficult to understand but after reading Sufi poetry I think that most of the language used was probably just representative ideas and nouns. In Sufi Poetry, flowers represent love; flight represents reunification with the great soul; birds represent the fallen sub-souls of the great soul. The fallen sub-souls love the great soul and long only to reunite with it. Though they can only achieve this through death. Death is viewed as something not to be feared but something good because with death, souls can become a part of their whole form again.

On another note, for the presentations next week, I really have no idea how we should explain why some book deserves to be on the syllabus moreso than another book. I really can't think of a good reason.

Sufi poetry

After reading several samples of Sufi Poetry it is clear that those who practice Sufism see themselves to be on a mental and spiritual journey towards God. Many of the poems attempt to guide those who seek God and describe the path leading to this level of spiritual attainment. We also discussed how Sufism is an offshoot of mainstream Islam. The two differ in several ways. While muslims believe that they are on a pathway to God once they die, Sufi's also believe that is possible to reach a connection or degree of closeness with God while still alive. Sufi poetry embraces love and God while exploring some of the deepest aspects of our consciousness. This is clear with the language employed by Sufi poets. I found the poems to be quite vivid and a good read for a change. I think this is because I can be a little more relaxed knowing that I wont have to write a paper on it or make sure that I have to fully understand or analyze it.

Sufi Poetry

This week in class we read Sufi poetry, which was an interesting topic. In Suffism, two types of love exist, profane and sacred. Sacred love is the love for God, while profane love is the love shown for everything else. The poems were full of symbolism, especially involving love, flowers, birds, and God. I found that it wasn’t too hard to understand the broad meanings of the poems, but it was difficult to catch on to a lot of the deep symbolism. One poem we read was about the transferring of an STD between lovers. After reading that poem, not in a million years would I have thought it meant that. Another poem was about God, and the conditions needed to truly love Him, and for him to love you in return. One belief that is displayed in much of Sufi poetry is that God and creation are one in the same, since God exists inside of everything.

Sufi poetry

Love is an universal subject in Sufi poetry. The poets believes that there is nothing but love exists at the beginning of the universe. According to Alcoran, Allah loves his people and vice versa. Allah is the first person who falls in love with his people. Sufism also believes that the one who behaves like the slavery of love is a very wise person. Therefore, the only valuable topic in Sufism is love. In Persian literature, the person who dies for love is always regarded as a hero. "Dies for love" is the only way makes a person immortal. Attar uses polo ball and cue to reflect the will of assimilation of two lovers. In "Montīq- at- tayr", Attar tells a love story between a ordinary person and king. The ordinary person is executed at the end because he is not willing to die for love.

Sufi Poetry

The suffism poetry we read in class this past week was not only interesting but very inspiring. It was very touching and made me think about something outside of everyday life. How these people (Attar, Hafiz,Rumi) try to find God is very inspiring and shows a lot of dedication.
According to what was said in class, there are two types of love in suffism, sacred and profane. The sacred is love for God while the profane is earthly love (for a person). According to suffism, God is not a perfect being that is unreachable. To them it is possible to draw closer to God more fully in present life than in death. In suffism, you are not required to buy redemption but rather to achieve and find your path to God.
There are also certain symbols that have to be in a suffism poetry such as "flight", "wine", "birds", and these symbols were used to portray the main content of the poem.

Margaret Yoon: Sufi Poetry

I enjoyed reading Sufi poetry because all three poets, Attar, Hafiz of Shiraz, and Jelaluddin Rumi express the depths of spiritual life very lyrically. I felt like when they describe their relationship with God, or the path to achieving reunion with God, it could almost seem like a “profane” or wordly relationship with another human being if taken out of context. They employ passionate tones that express their desire for complete oneness with God. Sufi poetry has had great influence on world literature, such as Goethe. He published his West-ostlicher Divan, a collection of lyric poems inspired by a German translation of Hafiz. American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson admired Persian poetry as well and published many essays that discuss it: Letters and Social Aims, From the Persian of Hafiz. A question I have for the Sufi poets is: How do you realize your purpose in the beginning? What made you desire this reunion with God-what was the stimulation?